- Amir Aczel
Amir D. Aczel (born
November 6 ,1950 ) is a lecturer in mathematics and the history of mathematics and science, and an author of popular books on mathematics and science.Biography
Amir D. Aczel was born in
Haifa, Israel . Aczel's father was the captain of a passenger ship that sailed primarilly in the Mediterranean Sea. When he was ten, Aczel's father taught his son how to steer a ship andnavigate . This inspired Aczel's book "The Riddle of the Compass ". [Richard Bernstein, "The Invention that Led Sailors Not to Feel at Sea," The New York Times, Sept. 5, 2001 [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9806EED91739F936A3575AC0A9679C8B63] ]When Aczel was 21 he studied at the
University of California, Berkeley . He graduated with a BA inmathematics in 1975, and received aMaster of Science in 1976. Several years later Aczel earned aPh.D. instatistics from the University of Oregon.Aczel has taught mathematics at universities in California, Alaska, Italy, and Greece. He married in 1984 and has one daughter. He accepted a professorship at
Bentley College inMassachusetts where he taught classes on thehistory of science and thehistory of mathematics . 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" (ISBN 978-1-56858-077-7), was a United States bestseller and was nominated for aLos Angeles Times Book Prize . Aczel has appeared onCNN ,CNBC and Nightline. Aczel was a 2004 Fellow of theJohn Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and Visiting Scholar in the History of Science atHarvard University (2007).Works
* "How to Beat the I.R.S. at Its Own Game: Strategies to Avoid and Fight an Audit", 1996. ISBN 978-1-568580-48-7
* "Fermat's Last Theorem: Unlocking the Secret of an Ancient Mathematical Problem", 1997. ISBN 978-1-56858-077-7
* "God's Equation: Einstein, Relativity, and the Expanding Universe", 1999. ISBN 1-56858-139-4
* "The Mystery of the Aleph: Relativity, Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity", 2000. ISBN 1-56858-105-X
* "Probability 1: The Book That Proves There Is Life In Outer Space",Harvest Books , January 2000. ISBN 0156010801.
* "The Riddle of the Compass: The Invention that Changed the World", 2001. ISBN 0-15-100506-0
* "Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics", 2002. ISBN 978-0-452-28457-9
* "Pendulum: Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science", 2003. ISBN 0-7434-6478-8
* "Chance: A Guide to Gambling, Love, and the Stock Market", 2004. ISBN 1568583168
* "Descartes' Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe", 2005. ISBN 0-7679-2033-3
* "The Artist and the Mathematician: The Story of Nicolas Bourbaki, the Genius Mathematician Who Never Existed", 2007.High Stakes Publishing ,London . ISBN 1-84344-034-2.
* "The Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man", 2007. ISBN 978-1-95448-956-3Notes
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