AbrahamNemeth

BLIND SINCE infancy, the mathematician Abraham Nemeth, who developed the Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics and Science Notation, prepared his own Braille barmitzvah texts, and later helped transcribe Hebrew religious writings into Braille.

Although not initially gifted in maths, he grew frustrated by the limitations of Braille to cope with its complexities, as his own interest in the subject developed. Letters and numbers became confused. Square roots and partial differentials proved inaccessible. He began toying with the foundation of Braille: the six dot cell.

Nemeth’s mathematical ambitions seemed unavoidably hampered by his visual impairment, and his tutors successfully veered him towards psychology instead. But he vehemently disagreed with the view that blind people could not do maths.

He graduated in psychology from Brooklyn College and later gained a Masters at Columbia in 1942, but the shortage of skilled jobs in the immediate post war period, prevented him from working in his field. He undertook various low paid jobs until he married Florence Weissman, herself partially blind, who encouraged him to resume his maths studies. She also worked to help pay his tuition fees.

Nemeth took up evening classes at Brooklyn College in the early 1940s and by 1946, proficient in all the undergraduate courses available, he began teaching calculus to students whose studies had been interrupted by military service. He devised a simple oral code which would eventually become what he dubbed “Mathspeak – genesis of the Nemeth Code, which help unravel sophisticated problems of mathematics beyond the normal scope of Braille alone. By 1952 his code was recognised as the standard by N. America’s Braille Authority and is internationally known today.

Nemeth, who became blind through congestive heart failure at six weeks old, was born on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the grandson of a kosher butcher. His father encouraged him to touch the raised letters on maiboxes and fire hydrants. He began writing straight lines, although he could not see them, and developed a long memory.

Educated at the New York Jewish Guild for the Blind in Yonkers, he discovered there was no Hebrew Braille. He literally taught himself biblical and Talmudic texts by listening to his grandfather read them aloud. He also studied piano through Braille music books, proving so talented that he worked his way through college by playing in dance bands and in Brooklyn bars.

Nemeth received his doctorate in mathematics from Wayne State University in Detroit and became professor of theoretical mathematics there. He began studying computer sciences in the 1960s, later launching the university’s computer science programme. He travelled all over the world to promote his system which remains essentially unchanged. Nemeth also helped devise a Braille version of the slide rule and other scientific instruments, including a calculator.

Nemeth continued his Hebrew studies in tandem with his maths. When he retired in 1985 he became a Braille proof reader for Hebrew and biblical texts. In 2006 he completed his composition of the English Braille for a Hebrew English version of the siddur. In the same year he received the Louis Braille Award from the International Braille Research Center in recognition of his life’s work.

It had not all been plain sailing. In 1991 Nemeth and a colleague Dr Tim Cranmer, became concerned at the “disarray” of the many Braille codes in current use. It led to the establishment of the International Council on English Braille in the same year. Nemeth came up with his own revised code, the Nemath Uniform Braille System, which was recognised by the UK in 2011,

Nemeth’s greatest contribution has been to open up the sciences, engineering and technology to increasing numbers of blind students, to whom these professions would have been previously barred.

Florence died in 1970 and Professor Nemeth’s second wife Edna, whom he married in 1971, also predeceased him in 200.