Dunham, William 1947- (William Wade Dunham)

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Dunham, William 1947- (William Wade Dunham)

PERSONAL:

Born December 8, 1947, in Pittsburgh, PA; son of Wade (an auditor) and Claramae Dunham; married Penelope Higgins (a professor), September 26, 1970; children: Brendan, Shannon. Education: Univer- sity of Pittsburgh, B.S. (summa cum laude), 1969; Ohio State University, M.S., 1970, Ph.D., 1974. Hobbies and other interests: Civil War history, "armchair mountaineering," nineteenth-and twentieth-century painting, Sherlock Holmes stories, travel, playing basketball.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Muhlenberg College, 2400 W. Chew St., Allentown, PA 18104. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, educator. Ohio State University, Columbus, lecturer in mathematics, 1974-75; Hanover College, Hanover, IN, assistant professor, 1975-81, associate professor, 1981-90, professor of mathematics, 1990-92; Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA, Truman Koehler Professor of Mathematics, 1992—. Ohio State University, visiting associate professor, 1987-89. Frequent commentator on NPR and BBC Radio. Military service: U.S. Army Reserve, 1970-76.

MEMBER:

Mathematical Association of America, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Indiana Civil Liberties Union (member of board of directors, 1979-84), Jefferson County Civil War Roundtable, Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi (honorary member), Phi Eta Sigma.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Baynham Award, Hanover College, 1981; Lilly Endowment grant, 1983; humanities achievement award, Indiana Humanities Council, 1990; George Polya Award, Mathematical Association of America, 1993; Best Mathematics Book, Association of American Publishers, 1994, for The Mathematical Universe; Trevor Evans Award, Mathematical Association of America, 1997, Lester R. Ford Award, 2006.

WRITINGS:

Journey through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics, Wiley (New York, NY), 1990.

The Mathematical Universe: An Alphabetical Journey through the Great Proofs, Problems, and Personalities, Wiley (New York, NY), 1994.

Euler: The Master of Us All, Mathematical Association of America (Washington, DC), 1999.

The Calculus Gallery: Masterpieces from Newton to Lebesgue, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2005.

(Editor) The Genius of Euler: Reflections on His Life and Work, Mathematical Association of America (Washington, DC), 2007.

Contributor to mathematics journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

William Dunham is a professor of mathematics who has written several books on math history. His first publication was the 1990 Journey through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics, which leads the reader through a popularized account of the twelve great mathematical theorems. Dunham once told CA: "As I wrote in the introduction to Journey through Genius, I wanted to tell the story of mathematics, not as a tool for the sciences, but as a creative human endeavor, placed squarely within the liberal arts tradition."

This work was followed four years later by the award-winning The Mathematical Universe: An Alphabetical Journey through the Great Proofs, Problems, and Personalities. In this work, Dunham begins with an entry for "Arithmetic" under the letter "A," and works his way through the history and processes of mathematics to letter "Z," which is the mathematical symbol for what are known as complex numbers. Along the way, the reader encounters twenty-six well-detailed entries. Under "Hypoteneuse," for example, Durham provides three different proofs, one from the ancient Chinese, one from the seventeenth century, and one from U.S. President James Garfield. A reviewer for Wilson Quarterly noted that an ability to understand the book "requires no more preparation than high school algebra and geometry (and a willingness not to panic at the sight of formulas)." Booklist contributor Bryce Christensen had high praise for The Mathematical Universe, calling it a "wonderfully informative tour of mathematics" that "sheds light not only on the personalities—eccentric, vain, brilliant—of major mathematicians, but also on contemporary social issues."

Dunham has also written The Calculus Gallery: Masterpieces from Newton to Lebesgue, which, as Dunham explained on the Muhlenberg College Web site, "surveys landmarks of the calculus, stretching from the early days in the late seventeenth century up to the dawn of the twentieth." Additionally, Dunham has written book-length and article-length works on the eighteenth-century mathematician Leonhard Euler, who is considered by many to be the greatest mathematician of all time. He explores biographical and mathematical features of the man's life in Euler: The Master of Us All, while in the 2007 The Genius of Euler: Reflections on His Life and Work, he serves as editor, gathering thirty papers on the mathematician in celebration of Euler's tercentenary.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Mathematical Monthly, March, 1992, Joe Albree, review of Journey through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics, p. 285.

American Scientist, July 1, 1991, William M. Waters, review of Journey through Genius, p. 374.

Booklist, August, 1994, Bryce Christensen, review of The Mathematical Universe: An Alphabetical Journey through the Great Proofs, Problems, and Personalities, p. 2009.

Choice, June, 1995, R.J. Wernick, review of The Mathematical Universe, p. 1632; September, 1999, D.V. Feldman, review of Euler: The Master of Us All, p. 183; September, 2005, D.S. Larson, review of The Calculus Gallery: Masterpieces from Newton to Lebesgue, p. 137.

Chronicle of Higher Education, July 18, 1990, "From Gerolamo Cardano to the Fighting Bernoulli Brothers, a Math Professor Brings the Great Mathematicians to Life," p. 13.

Journal of College Science Teaching, November, 1992, Gordon D. Prichett, review of Journey through Genius, p. 129; November, 1996, Maurice E. Gilmore, review of The Mathematical Universe, p. 150.

Journal of Recreational Mathematics, summer, 1991, John Caffrey, review of Journey through Genius; fall, 1994, Charles Ashbacher, review of The Mathematical Universe; summer, 1998, Charles Ashbacher, review of Euler.

Library Journal, August, 1994, Amy Brunvand, review of The Mathematical Universe, p. 120.

Los Angeles Times, May 15, 1990, review of Journey through Genius.

Mathematics Teacher, December, 1997, review of The Mathematical Universe, p. 756; November, 2000, Sharon Cutler Ross, review of Euler, p. 726; October, 2007, Harold Don Allen, "The Early Mathematics of Leonhard Euler," p. 239.

Nature, October 25, 1990, Ian Stewart, review of Journey through Genius, p. 722; January 19, 1995, Jerry P. King, review of The Mathematical Universe, p. 206; November 27, 1997, review of The Mathematical Universe, p. 355.

New Scientist, December 3, 1994, Harold Thimbleby, review of The Mathematical Universe, p. 44.

Quill and Quire, July, 1990, review of Journey through Genius, p. 60.

Science, June 24, 2005, "Landmarks on the Road to Modern Analysis," p. 1872.

Science Books & Films, August, 1997, review of The Mathematical Universe, p. 173; January, 1998, review of Journey through Genius, p. 27; March, 2001, review of The Mathematical Universe, p. 52; July 1, 2007, "510 Mathematics," p. 161.

Science Teacher, February, 1991, Stewart E. Brekke, review of Journey through Genius, p. 87.

SciTech Book News, May, 1990, review of Journey through Genius, p. 4; June, 1997, review of The Mathematical Universe, p. 6; June, 1999, review of Euler, p. 38; March, 2007, review of The Genius of Euler: Reflections on His Life and Work.

Wilson Quarterly, summer, 1997, David Luban, review of The Mathematical Universe.