This room was Hendrik Lenstra’s: it declares
the measures of a scholar’s life, in squares.
In Groningen the young boy had his start
at Kohnstam’s School, beguiled by Euclid’s art.
In one year less, his knowledge multiplied:
Praedinius his school, Newton his guide.
At Vossius he studied half as long,
but learned from Gauss the notes of nature’s song.
His research was at Amsterdam begun
in lattices, and curves of genus one.
At Berkeley he turned numbers into primes
and filled the hole in Escher for The Times.
Two measures more stand out from his career,
one longer than the other by a year.
These split his time at Berkeley into two,
with honours from the old world and the new.
The first ends when, as teacher, back he’s brought
to Groningen, where young Bernoulli taught.
The next starts when he joins mathematics’ giants,
elected to th’Academy of Science,
and closes with a gathering of his peers
to celebrate four dozen glorious years.
Steven Hillion, March 22nd 2003