Thomas Lehrer was an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician born in 1928 in New York City. He earned a science degree in mathematics from Harvard University in 1946 and went on to teach mathematics at MIT, Harvard, and Wellesley, though he never completed his PhD. Lehrer began performing satirical songs in Boston nightclubs in 1954 and selling albums on campus, gaining popularity. He wrote songs for the TV show That Was The Week That Was in the 1960s and composed industrial songs. Lehrer commented that his musical career was worthwhile if it inspired anyone to be nasty to a friend or strike a loved one, though he felt satire likely only preached to the converted rather than impacting views

1. TOM LEHRER
Made by S.Kuzovchikov and A.Farygin

2. THOMAS • American singer-
ANDREW songwriter, satirist, pianist, mathematic
LEHRER ian.

3. CHILDHOOD • Lehrer was born in April 9, 1928 in a
Jewish family living in the New York City.
• Lehrer graduated from the Horace
Mann school in Riverdale, New York. He
attended Camp Androscoggin as
camper and a counselor

4. MATHEMATICS • Lehrer earned his science grade in
CAREER mathematics from Harvard University in
1946, when he was nineteen
• Taught classes at
MIT, Harvard, Wellesley
• In 1960 Lehrer returned to full-time
studies in Harvard, but he never
completed his doctoral studies in
mathematics
• In 2001, Lehrer taught his last
mathematics class (on the topic of
infinity) and retired from academia

5. MUSIC • Lehrer performed in a Boston nightclub
CAREER on October 9, 1954
• Paid for some studio time to
record Songs by Tom Lehrer
• He sold his album on campus at Harvard
for three dollars

6. ON TV • Lehrer was employed as the resident
songwriter for the U.S. edition of That
Was The Week That Was
• Also around 1967, Lehrer composed and
performed on piano original songs in a
Dodge automobile "industrial" film

7. PUBLICATIONS • RE Fagen & TA Lehrer, "Random walks
with restraining barrier as applied to
the biased binary counter", Journal of
the Society for Industrial Applied
Mathematics, vol. 6, pp. 1–14 (March
1958) MR0094856
• T Austin, R Fagen, T Lehrer, W
Penney, "The distribution of the
number of locally maximal elements in
a random sample", Annals of
Mathematical Statistics vol.
28, pp. 786–790 (1957) MR0091251

8. LEGACY • Lehrer has said of his musical
career, "If, after hearing my
songs, just one human being
is inspired to say something
nasty to a friend, or perhaps
to strike a loved one, it will
all have been worth the
while."

9. • Lehrer has commented that
he doubts his songs had any
real effect on those not
already critical of the
establishment: "I don't think
this kind of thing has an
impact on the
unconverted, frankly. It's not
even preaching to the
converted; it's titillating the
converted... I'm fond of
quoting Peter Cook, who
talked about the satirical
Berlin cabarets of the
1930s, which did so much to
stop the rise of Hitler and
prevent the Second World

10. THANK YOU FOR ATTENTION