Blind, Wins Math Prize

Aided by a remarkable memory, Edward L. Glaser '51, a 19-year-old blind student from Glencoe, Ill., has been awarded first prize in the annual Thayer Prize Contest for excellence in analytic geometry and the calculus.

According to the department chairman, Professor Bancroft H. Brown, Glaser has such a phenomenal memory that in general he was able to keep in mind all the details of a problem.

His examination was conducted as follows: After a question was read to him, Glaser would tell a proctor what to write down. Occasionally he would ask to have an earlier equa- tion repeated. The proctor would look up numerical values for him in tables, but this was the only help of any kind which he received.

The contest consisted of five prob- lems of types entirely new to any of the contestants. According to Pro- fessor Brown, Glaser was superior not only in originality, but also in technical excellence.