Tom Mike Apostol (August 20, 1923 – May 8, 2016) was an American analytic number theorist and professor at the

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 ...

, best known as the author of widely used mathematical textbooks.

Life and career

Apostol was born in

Helper, Utah Helper is a city in Carbon County, Utah, Carbon County, Utah, United States, approximately southeast of Salt Lake City and northwest of the city of Price, Utah, Price. The population was 2,201 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. The ...

. His parents, Emmanouil Apostolopoulos and Efrosini Papathanasopoulos, were Greek immigrants. Apostolopoulos's name was shortened to Mike Apostol when he obtained his United States citizenship, and Tom Apostol inherited this

Americanized Americanization or Americanisation (see spelling differences) is the influence of American culture and business on other countries outside the United States of America, including their media, cuisine, business practices, popular culture, tec ...

surname. Apostol received his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

in 1944,

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in mathematics from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

in 1946, and a PhD in mathematics from 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 ...

in 1948. Thereafter Apostol was a faculty member at UC Berkeley,

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

, and

Caltech 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 ...

. He was the author of several influential graduate and undergraduate level textbooks. Apostol was the creator and project director for Project MATHEMATICS! producing videos which explore basic topics in high school mathematics. He helped popularize the

visual calculus Visual calculus, invented by Mamikon Mnatsakanian (known as Mamikon), is an approach to solving a variety of integral calculus problems. Many problems that would otherwise seem quite difficult yield to the method with hardly a line of calculatio ...

devised by Mamikon Mnatsakanian with whom he also wrote a number of papers, many of which appeared in the '' American Mathematical Monthly''. Apostol also provided academic content for an acclaimed video lecture series on introductory physics, ''

The Mechanical Universe ''The Mechanical Universe...And Beyond'' is a 52-part telecourse, filmed at the California Institute of Technology, that introduces university level physics, covering topics from Copernicus to quantum mechanics. The 1985-86 series was produced by ...

''. In 2001, Apostol was elected in the Academy of Athens. He received a

Lester R. Ford Award Lester is an ancient Anglo-Saxon surname and given name. Notable people and characters with the name include: People Given name * Lester Bangs (1948–1982), American music critic * Lester W. Bentley (1908–1972), American artist from Wisc ...

in 2005, in 2008, and in 2010. In 2012 he became a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

.List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
retrieved 2012-11-03.

Bibliography

* ''Mathematical Analysis: A Modern Approach to Advanced Calculus'', (1957) Addison-Wesley, * ''Introduction to Analytic Number Theory'', (1976) Springer-Verlag, New York. * ''Modular Functions and Dirichlet Series in Number Theory'', (1990) Springer-Verlag, New York. * ''Calculus, Volume 1, One-variable calculus, with an introduction to linear algebra'', (1967) Wiley, , * ''Calculus, Volume 2, Multi-variable calculus and linear algebra with applications to differential equations and probability'', (1969) Wiley, * ''The Mechanical Universe: Mechanics and Heat, Advanced Edition'' (with Steven C. Frautschi, Richard P. Olenick, and David L. Goodstein) * ''New Horizons in Geometry'' (with Mamikon Mnatsakanian)

Notes

External links

*
Project MATHEMATICS!
{{DEFAULTSORT:Apostol, Tom M. 1923 births 2016 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Greek mathematicians Number theorists University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences alumni UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty California Institute of Technology faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society American textbook writers People from Helper, Utah American people of Greek descent Mathematicians from Utah University of Washington College of Engineering alumni Corresponding Members of the Academy of Athens (modern)