The Unabomber Manifesto, which appeared in The Washington Post and The New York Times and was titled Industrial Society and Its Future, was not the first time its author, Theodore John Kaczynski, had been published.
As a graduate student at the University of Michigan, he had published two papers on mathematics functions related to circles, creating some outstanding original research. Yet, it wasn't until they began to see Kaczynski's work being published in respected journals that his classmates or professors were even aware of this work, and they were simply amazed, according to The New York Times. "While most of us were just trying to learn how to arrange logical statements into coherent arguments, Ted was quietly solving open problems and creating new mathematics," a classmate told the Times.
When it came time for his doctoral dissertation, Kacyznski's failure to consult with professors derailed his original thesis, which had already been undertaken by a classmate. Fortunately, his two previously published works proved invaluable — he combined them into his dissertation "Boundary Functions." While brilliant, it lacked practical application, but it awarded Kaczynski his doctorate and earned the university's prize for best mathematical dissertation in 1967. His brother, David, said that Kaczynski didn't seem proud or gratified but rather seemed "more and more interested in the woods" — woods to which he retreated to write his most famous work ... the Unabomber Manifesto.
