George Adams

George Adams Kaufmann, also George Adams and George von Kaufmann, (8 February 1894, Maryampol, Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – 30 March 1963, Edgbaston, UK) was a British mathematician, translator and anthroposophist. He travelled widely, spoke several languages and translated many of Rudolf Steiner’s lectures into English. Through his studies in theoretical physics, he contributed to the expansion and development of the natural sciences as extended by the concepts of anthroposophy. Youth His father, Georg von Kaufmann, a British subject of German descent, was a pioneer of the oil industry. His mother was born Kate Adams in England. Shortly after George's birth, the family moved to Solotwina in the foothills of the Carpathians. In 1897, when he was three years old, his parents divorced. His father retained custody of the children and it was only a short while before her death in 1935, that Adams saw his mother again. The father married again – a young German woman, who created for George and his siblings a happy childhood. Educated by English governesses, he was raised to fluency in several languages, primarily English, German and Polish. From 1905, Adams attended Mill Hill School in England, travelling home alone to his family in Galicia. In 1912 he entered Christ's College, Cambridge to read Chemistry, completing his BA in 1915. He was president of Cambridge University Socialist Society in 1915.