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I met Max Zorn once. I was taking graduate level Real Analysis as part of my PhD studies at Indiana University. Of course, I had just learned Zorn's lemma. I assumed that it was made up by someone long dead.
It was a day with dark foreboding clouds. Just as I walked into the snack machine room, there was a sudden massive downpour. I saw an elderly gentleman struggling to close the window. I went over and helped. He thanked me. We shook our heads together at the suddenness of the storm.
After he walked out, a classmate said, "Dude, that was Max Zorn, of Zorn's Lemma."
Apparently at the time, he was retired emeritus, but apparently he still came to the office from time to time.
I have heard yesterday from somebody who studied at the Indiana University that Zorn died in a car accident, being hit by a student at a dangerous pedestrian crossing near the university, with the car going downhill; it was only after this death that the long-rejected petition to the city traffic folks was finally accepted and traffic lights erected in order to prevent similar accident reoccurences at the same place. Any locals up for local newspapers library research to confirm this? BACbKA 14:27, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I remember Max Zorn, George Minty, and Professor Arnold would sit in the math lounge when it was in Swain and talk about all sorts of elementary math problems. It was great! Zorn would come to lots of talks and always have interesting questions to ask. He had this zest for mathematics that was infectious. He would publish a newspaper he called "The Times Picayune" and put it in our mailboxes. It was almost incoherent but filled with observations about mathematics. Max would come to tea, and he was always willing to talk to the graduate students. His attitude was incredible.
Zorn didn't die in a car accident. He died of congestive heart failure. Whoever told you that was messing up some half remembered stories. There was a retired professor from the math department at Indiana who died by being hit by a car. However, I think that the accident took place in Berkeley.—topoman
See here for a reprint of the local newspaper story: http://mitchrice.us/?p=750. Zorn was in a car accident on Nov 28, 1992. "He died on March 9, 1993, of congestive heart failure in connection with his injuries."—98.193.82.225 (talk) 07:47, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Can anyone confirm Z was also a numerical analyst? I found no reference about it on other sources. Fph (talk) 18:51, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The last year he published was 1947. One of the articles (that appeared in the Mathematical Monthly) was about Approximating sums. He had many interests
and many good ideas. If it appeared in the monthly it was not really "serious" mathematics. He wrote 15 papers in his career, they were about set theory, p-adic analysis, topological groups, complex analysis, and some infinite dimensional analysis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Topoman (talk • contribs) 13:56, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
