MotherFunctor.org Book Drive for Vietnam

In his front page column introducing the 1960's Berkeley mathematics department's "counter newsletter" Up Against the Blackboard, or Mother Functor, Fields Medallist Professor Steve Smale wrote:

"Mathematicians have tended to become technicians whose work for the most part is viewed as not relating to any social issues...I would like these theses challenged on a wide front..."(see photo on MotherFunctor.org homepage)

Part of the Berkeley newsletter was devoted to protesting the involvement of American troops in Vietnam. That is, supporting the people of Vietnam, independent of the two temporary governments of our countries. MotherFunctor intends to continue this tradition, by involving mathematicians and other academics in taking an active part in helping society.

In particular, we are starting with a Book Drive for the newly established English-language International University HoChiMinh City, which is in desperate need of technical books.

One of our staff was a U.S. Army Captain who, as a non-volunteer, saw combat in Vietnam in 1969-70. In 2002, he returned to Vietnam to accept an unprecedented invitation for a former "enemy" combatant to return as a scientist (to lecture on his discoveries in mathematics). Since that visit, he has arranged for a small number of research mathematics books that his hosts needed to be sent to Vietnam. Our aim is to build on those renewed ties, and, as the Berkeley counter-newsletter did indirectly, to help the people of Vietnam, especially in the realm of higher education. Our Vietnam Book Drive is the first of what we hope will be many similar projects.

MotherFunctor.org asks your participation in this project, and donations (new or used [good condition] books, ones on the list and not, duplicates) will be most welcome. Please see the Books for Vietnam website for further information.. Thank you!!!