Amir Dan Aczel (; November 6, 1950 – November 26, 2015) was an Israeli-born American lecturer in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and the

history of mathematics The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments ...

and science, and an author of popular books on mathematics and science.

Biography

Amir D. Aczel was born in

Haifa, Israel Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

. Aczel's father was the captain of a passenger ship that sailed primarily in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

. When he was ten, Aczel's father taught his son how to steer a ship and

navigate Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

. This inspired Aczel's book ''The Riddle of the Compass''. Amir graduated from the

Hebrew Reali School , motto_translation = ''Walk Humbly'' , address = Hertzel 16 , city = Haifa , zipcode = 3312103 , country = Israel , coordinates = , other_name ...

in Haifa, in 1969. When Aczel was 21, he studied at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He graduated with a BA in

in 1975, and received a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

in 1976. Several years later Aczel earned a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

from the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

. Aczel taught mathematics at universities in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, and

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

. He married his wife Debra in 1984 and had one daughter, Miriam, and one stepdaughter. He accepted a professorship at

Bentley College Bentley University is a private university focused on business, accountancy, and finance and located in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1917 as a school of accounting and finance in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, Bentley moved to Waltham in ...

, where he taught classes on statistics and the

history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...

and

. He authored two textbooks on statistics. While teaching at Bentley, Aczel wrote several non-technical books on mathematics and science, as well as two textbooks. His book, ''Fermat's Last Theorem'' (), was a United States bestseller and was nominated for a

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes currently have nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller ( ...

. Aczel appeared on

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

The History Channel History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...

, and

Nightline ''Nightline'' (or ''ABC News Nightline'') is ABC News' late-night television news program broadcast on ABC in the United States with a franchised formula to other networks and stations elsewhere in the world. Created by Roone Arledge, the progra ...

. Aczel was a 2004 Fellow of the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...

, a visiting scholar in the History of Science at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

(2007), and was awarded a Sloan Foundation grant to research his 2015 book ''Finding Zero'' (). In 2003, he became a research fellow at the

Boston University Center for Philosophy and History of Science Boston University Center for Philosophy and History of Science is an interdepartmental, interuniversity forum on the nature of science, and each year organizes the Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science. History The Center for Philosophy and ...

, and in Fall 2011 was teaching mathematics courses at

University of Massachusetts Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a Public university, public research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus Un ...

. He was a speaker at

La Ciudad de las Ideas La Ciudad de las Ideas (stylized as CDI) is an annual conference held in Puebla, Mexico, produced by Mexican writer and television producer Andrés Roemer. Its objective is to debate ideas in science, technology, art, design, politics, educat ...

(The City of Ideas), Puebla, Mexico, i
20082010
, and

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

. He died in Nîmes, France in 2015 from cancer.

Works

*''Complete Business Statistics, 8th Edition, 2012.'' *''Statistics: Concepts and Applications, 1995''. *''How to Beat the I.R.S. at Its Own Game: Strategies to Avoid and Fight an Audit'', 1996. * ''Fermat's Last Theorem: Unlocking the Secret of an Ancient Mathematical Problem'', 1997. * ''God's Equation: Einstein, Relativity, and the Expanding Universe'', 1999. * ''The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity'', 2000. * ''Probability 1: The Book That Proves There Is Life In Outer Space'',

Harvest Books Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City an ...

, January 2000. . * ''The Riddle of the Compass: The Invention that Changed the World'', 2001. * ''Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics'', 2002. and * ''Pendulum: Léon Foucault and the Triumph of Science'', 2003. * ''Chance: A Guide to Gambling, Love, and the Stock Market'', 2004. * ''Descartes' Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe'', 2005. * ''The Artist and the Mathematician: The Story of Nicolas Bourbaki, the Genius Mathematician Who Never Existed'', 2007. High Stakes Publishing,

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. . * ''The Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man'', 2007. * ''Uranium Wars: The Scientific Rivalry that Created the Nuclear Age'', 2009. * ''The Cave and the Cathedral: How a Real-Life Indiana Jones and a Renegade Scholar Decoded the Ancient Art of Man'', 2009. * ''Present at the Creation: The Story of CERN and the Large Hadron Collider'', 2010. * ''A Strange Wilderness: The Lives of the Great Mathematicians'', 2011. * ''Why Science Does Not Disprove God'', 2014. * ''Finding Zero'', 2015. *

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Aczel, Amir 1950 births 2015 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Hebrew Reali School alumni Bentley University faculty Boston University faculty Deaths from cancer in France Harvard University staff American historians of mathematics Israeli emigrants to the United States Israeli Jews Writers from Haifa UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni University of Massachusetts Boston faculty University of Oregon alumni