In the mathematics of flows and shocks, Cathleen Morawetz, Olga Ladyzhenskaya, and Olga Oleinik together form a singular legacy, an interconnected legacy (Early Memories of Olga Ladyzhenskaya and Olga Oleinik). One senses a process and procedure of inheritance indifferent to the act of birth (Women in Mathematics: The Legacy of Ladyzhenskaya and Oleinik).

“Of course, many discoveries have something of an accident about them,” said Morawetz. And, perhaps, Hölderlin would have responded: “By that mysterious yearning toward the chasm; / Chaotic deeps attract, and whole peoples too”