88 Friday, May 24, 1985

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

COD IN G A CAR EE R

Blind since birth,

Dr. Abraham
Nemeth is ending

a 30-year tenure as
a U of D math

.

professor and

creator of Braille

codes.

BY SHERI PICKOVER
Staff Writer

iiI

•

f you're capable, you can
do anything you want,"
says Dr. Abraham
Nemeth, math professor
at the University of De-
troit. Blind since birth, Dr. Nemeth is
retiring after 30 years as a teacher at
the U of D. Throughout his long career,
he has taught both undergraduates
and graduates. He is currently teach-
ing computer science to graduate stu-
dents, but will end his teaching career
in July.
He was born and raised in New
York City and has a strong Orthodox
Jewish background. Yiddish is and
was his first language.
Dr. Nemeth, who is never at a loss
for a story or a joke, says he spent part
of his childhood playing with Zero
Mostel in the lower East Side of Man-
hattan: "We would search the streets
for orange crates and carriage wheels,

and then make go-carts to ride all over
the city."
After high school, he attended
Brooklyn College and earned a
bachelor's degree in psychology. He
went into that field because a teacher
told him his lack of sight would
hamper a career in math. "I was not a
rebellious student," he says.
At Columbia, he earned a mas-
ter's degree in psychology but couldn't
find work. He decided to go back to
school and study math because, he
says, "I would rather be an unem-
ployed mathematician than an unem-
ployed psychologist."
While taking courses at night, he
supported himself by sewing pillow
cases, working as a stockboy, and play-
ing piano in bars.
*: Dr. Nemeth learned to play the
piano by ear, which he jokingly admits
is a "rather uncomfortable position,"
He did, however, want to play music
the way the composers had written it,
and this desire led to his first inven-
tion for the blind. At the time, in the
1940s, there was only a Braille dictio-
nary for writing music, not reading it.
So, he used his philosophy of "if it
doesn't exist, make one," and invented
the Nemeth Dictionary of Braille Mus-
ical Symbols.
While in school, he realized that

he needed a system to study math. So,
once again, he invented it. "I began by
creating symbols as I needed them."
His symbols eventually grew into the
Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics
and Scientific Notation. Dr. Nemeth
showed the code to friends and in 1965
it was adopted by the United States
government as the official math code
for the blind. The code covers math
from the simplest level 'to the most
complicated and is also the official
code in Canada, New Zealand, and
several other countries.
Still in New York, Dr. Nemeth
was asked to tutor calculus to veterans
resuming college after World War II.
He taught by having the student write
down a problem on the blackboard'and
work out as much as they could. When
they couldn't go any further, they
would tell him what they had done and
he would help them finish.
Following his tutoring job, he was
asked to teach for an ill professor.
More substitute teaching convinced
him that he wanted a permanent posi-
tion. In 1955, he sent letters all over
the country asking for a job, but only
two schools responded offering inter-
views. His first interview was at the
University of Detroit, and he im-
mediately accepted a position in the

Continued on Page 34

