Michael Spivak Explained

Michael Spivak
Birth Date:25 May 1940
Birth Place:Queens, New York City, U.S.
Death Place:Houston, Texas, U.S.
Fields:
Education:
Thesis Title:On Spaces Satisfying Poincaré Duality
Thesis Url:https://search.proquest.com/docview/302162093
Thesis Year:1964
Doctoral Advisor:John Milnor
Known For:
Awards:Leroy P. Steele Prize for Expository Writing (1985)

Michael David Spivak (May 25, 1940October 1, 2020)[1] [2] was an American mathematician specializing in differential geometry, an expositor of mathematics, and the founder of Publish-or-Perish Press. Spivak was the author of the five-volume A Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry, which won the Leroy P. Steele Prize for expository writing in 1985.

Biography

Spivak was born in Queens, New York. He received his Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) from Harvard University in 1960, and in 1964 he received his Ph.D. from Princeton University under the supervision of John Milnor, with his thesis, On Spaces Satisfying Poincaré Duality. Afterwards, Spivak taught as a full-time Math Lecturer at Brandeis University, whilst writing Calculus on Manifolds: A Modern Approach to Classical Theorems of Advanced Calculus, which was later translated into Polish, Spanish, Japanese and Russian. In 1967 he won a year-long National Science Foundation fellowship to Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, after which Spivak returned to Brandeis as Assistant Professor of Mathematics till 1970. In his last year as Assistant Professor, he published the first two volumes of "what would become a five-volume masterpiece with the daunting title, Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry."[3] In 1985, Spivak received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for this five-volume set.[4]

In 2004, Spivak lectured on elementary physics. Spivak's book, Physics for Mathematicians: Mechanics I (published December 6, 2010), contains the material that these lectures stemmed from and more.[5] Spivak was also the designer of the MathTime Professional 2 fonts (which are widely used in academic publishing)[6] and the creator of the TV series Science International.[7]

Spivak died on October 1, 2020. He was survived by his sister Susan Spivak and his longtime partner Michael Kramer, whom he had met in 1997.[8]

Writing

His five-volume A Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry[9] is among his most influential and celebrated works. The distinctive pedagogical aim of the work, as stated in its preface, was to elucidate for graduate students the often obscure relationship between classical differential geometry—geometrically intuitive but imprecise—and its modern counterpart, replete with precise but unintuitive algebraic definitions. On several occasions, most prominently in Volume 2, Spivak "translates" the classical language that Gauss or Riemann would be familiar with to the abstract language that a modern differential geometer might use. The Leroy P. Steele Prize was awarded to Spivak in 1985 for his authorship of the work.

Spivak also authored several well-known undergraduate textbooks. Among them, his textbook Calculus[10] takes a rigorous and theoretical approach to introductory calculus and includes proofs of many theorems taken on faith in most other introductory textbooks. Spivak acknowledged in the preface of the second edition that the work is arguably an introduction to mathematical analysis rather than a calculus textbook.[11] Another of his well-known textbooks is Calculus on Manifolds,[12] a concise (146 pages) but rigorous and modern treatment of multivariable calculus accessible to advanced undergraduates.

Spivak also wrote The Joy of TeX: A Gourmet Guide to Typesetting with the AMS-TeX Macro Package and The Hitchhiker's Guide to Calculus. The book Morse Theory by Spivak's PhD advisor John Milnor was based on lecture notes by Spivak and Robert Wells (as mentioned on the cover page of the booklet).

Spivak pronouns

See main article: Spivak pronouns. Spivak used a set of English gender-neutral pronouns, e/em/eir, in his book The Joy of TeX, which are often referred to as Spivak pronouns.[13] Spivak stated that he did not originate these pronouns.

Bibliography

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. October 1985 . 1985 Steele Prizes Awarded at Summer Meeting in Laramie . Notices of the American Mathematical Society . 32 . 243 . 576 . November 30, 2021 . November 30, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211130031304/https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/198510/198510FullIssue.pdf . live .
  2. Beeton . Barbara . 2021 . Michael D. Spivak, 1940–2020 . TUGboat . 42 . 3 . 226–227 . 10.47397/tb/42-3/tb132beeton-spivak . 244121636 . 29 November 2021 . November 30, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211130194532/https://tug.org/TUGboat/tb42-3/tb132beeton-spivak.pdf . live .
  3. https://www.georgevecsey.com/home/one-brilliant-classmate-remembers-another One Brilliant Classmate Remembers Another
  4. [Leroy P. Steele Prize]
  5. Book: Spivak, Michael . Physics for Mathematicians, Mechanics I . 2010 . Publish or Perish . 978-0-914098-32-4.
  6. Web site: MathTime Professional 2 Fonts . October 15, 2013 . pctex.com . October 29, 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20131029012541/http://pctex.com/mtpro2.html . live .
  7. April 7, 1983 . Snippets of science from a goon . New Scientist . Reed Business Information . 98 . 1352.
  8. Michael Spivak: A Memorial . Notices of the American Mathematical Society . June–July 2024 . 71 . 10.1090/noti2956 . 2 August 2024.
  9. Book: Spivak, Michael . A comprehensive introduction to differential geometry . 1999 . Publish or Perish, Inc . 978-0-914098-70-6 . 3rd . Houston, TX . ocm42962004.
  10. Book: Spivak, Michael . Calculus . 1994 . Publish or Perish . 978-0-914098-89-8 . 3rd . Houston, TX.
  11. Bressoud . David . 2013 . Spivak . Michael . Nitecki . Zbigniew . Sharhriari . Shahriar . Cates . Dennis M. . Thomson . Brian S. . Review . The American Mathematical Monthly . 120 . 6 . 577–580 . 10.4169/amer.math.monthly.120.06.577 . 0002-9890 . 10.4169/amer.math.monthly.120.06.577 . June 14, 2022 . June 14, 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220614042640/https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.4169/amer.math.monthly.120.06.577 . live .
  12. Book: Spivak, Michael . Calculus on manifolds: A modern approach to classical theorems of advanced calculus . 2018 . CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group . 978-0-8053-9021-6 . Mathematics monograph series . Boca Raton London New York.
  13. News: McCurdy . Christen . Are Gender-Neutral Pronouns Actually Doomed? . February 26, 2014 . Pacific Standard . May 20, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210520155506/https://psmag.com/social-justice/gender-neutral-pronouns-actually-doomed-67600 . live .
  14. Guillemin . Victor . Victor Guillemin . 1973 . Review: A comprehensive introduction to differential geometry, Vols. 1 & 2, by M. Spivak . Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. . 79 . 2 . 303–306 . 10.1090/s0002-9904-1973-13149-0 . free . April 28, 2021 . June 20, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210620140908/https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1973-79-02/S0002-9904-1973-13149-0/ . live .
  15. Alexander . Stephanie . 1978 . Review: A comprehensive introduction to differential geometry, Vols. 3, 4, & 5, by M. Spivak . Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. . 84 . 1 . 27–32 . 10.1090/s0002-9904-1978-14399-7 . free . April 28, 2021 . April 17, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210417083208/https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1978-84-01/S0002-9904-1978-14399-7/ . live .
  16. Web site: Gouvêa . Fernando Q. . Fernando Q. Gouvêa . 2 February 1996 . Review: A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Calculus by Michael Spivak . MAA Reviews . January 21, 2015 . January 18, 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150118010505/http://www.maa.org/publications/maa-reviews/a-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-calculus . live .

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Michael Spivak".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.