George Finlay Simmons (March 3, 1925 – August 6, 2019) was an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

who worked in

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ...

and

classical analysis Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limits, and related theories, such as differentiation, integration, measure, infinite sequences, series, and analytic functions. These theories are usually studied in ...

. He is known as the author of widely used textbooks on university mathematics.

Life

He was born on 3 March 1925 in Austin, Texas. He received his BS degree from

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

in 1946. He received his MS degree from

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1948. After finishing his PhD from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

in 1957, he joined

Colorado College Colorado College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was founded in 1874 by Thomas Nelson Haskell in his daughter's memory. The college enrolls approxi ...

as a lecturer. From 1957 to his death in 2019, he taught at a number of universities, which include Williams College, the University of Rhode Island, Yale University, the University of Maine, and the University of Chicago.

Quotes

In the

algebra Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics. Elementary ...

preface of his book ''Precalculus Mathematics in a Nutshell'', Professor George F. Simmons wrote that the New Math produced students who had "heard of the

commutative law In mathematics, a binary operation is commutative if changing the order of the operands does not change the result. It is a fundamental property of many binary operations, and many mathematical proofs depend on it. Most familiar as the name of ...

, but did not know the

multiplication table In mathematics, a multiplication table (sometimes, less formally, a times table) is a mathematical table used to define a multiplication operation for an algebraic system. The decimal multiplication table was traditionally taught as an essenti ...

Selected publications

Some of his books are: *''Introduction to Topology and Modern Analysis'' (1963) *''Differential Equations with Applications and Historical Notes'' (1972, 1991, 2016) *''Precalculus Mathematics in a Nutshell'' (1981) *''Calculus with Analytic Geometry'' (1985, 1996) *''Calculus Gems: Brief Lives and Memorable Mathematics'' (1992)

References

20th-century American mathematicians 1925 births 2019 deaths Writers from Austin, Texas Mathematicians from Texas California Institute of Technology alumni University of Texas alumni 21st-century American mathematicians American textbook writers {{US-mathematician-stub