Raymond Louis Wilder

Raymond Louis Wilder (3 November 1896 in Palmer, Massachusetts – 7 July 1982 in Santa Barbara, California) was an American mathematician, who specialized in topology and gradually acquired philosophical and anthropological interests.

Wilder's father was a printer. Raymond was musically inclined. He played cornet in the family orchestra, which performed at dances and fairs, and accompanied silent films on the piano.

He entered Brown University in 1914, intending to become an actuary. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Navy as an ensign. Brown awarded him his first degree in 1920, and a master's degree in actuarial mathematics in 1921. That year, he married Una Maude Greene; they had four children, thanks to whom they have ample descent.

Wilder chose to do his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin, the most fateful decision of his life. At Texas, Wilder discovered pure mathematics and topology, thanks to the remarkable influence of Robert Lee Moore, the founder of topology in the USA and the inventor of the Moore method for teaching mathematical proof. Moore was initially unimpressed by the young actuary, but Wilder went on to solve a difficult open problem that Moore had posed to his class. Moore suggested Wilder write up the solution for his Ph.D. thesis, which he did in 1923, titling it Concerning Continuous Curves. Wilder thus became the first of Moore's many doctoral students at the University of Texas.

After a year as an instructor at Texas, Wilder was appointed assistant professor at the Ohio State University in 1924. That university required that its academic employees sign a loyalty oath, which Wilder was very reluctant to sign because doing so was inconsistent with his lifelong progressive political and moral views.

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