Department of Mathematics & Computer Science

Dr. William Dunham

Truman Koehler Professor of Mathematics

Education

Contact Information

Biography

Teaching Interests:

At Muhlenberg, I have taught math courses of all kinds, from the elementary to the advanced. My favorites, I suppose, involve the history of mathematics. I offer a pair of half-credit courses on this topic: Landmarks of Greek Mathematics (Math 251), featuring selections from Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolemy, and their compatriots, and Landmarks of Modern Mathematics (Math 252), featuring the equally impressive work of Newton, Leibniz, Euler, and Gauss. These provide a glimpse of history's greatest mathematicians and the theorems that made them famous.

Scholarly Interests:

I am the author of three books on math history. The first two, Journey Through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics (1990) and The Mathematical Universe (1994), were alternate selections for Book-of-the-Month Club and have since been translated into Spanish, Italian, German, Polish, and Japanese, and the latter received the Association of American Publishers Award as the Best Mathematics Book of 1994. My third book, Euler: The Master of Us All, was published in 1999 by the Mathematical Association of America. My fourth book, The Calculus Gallery: Masterpieces from Newton to Lebesgue, came out in 2005 from Princeton University Press. As the name suggests, it surveys landmarks of the calculus, stretching from the early days in the late 17^th century up to the dawn of the 20^th.

I also have written a number of articles on historical topics, one of which, "Euler and the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra," won the 1993 George Polya Award from the MAA and another, "1996: A Triple Anniversary," received the MAA's Trevor Evans Award in 1997. And—just for fun—my publication list includes two (lame) mathematical cartoons and three (lamer) mathematical poems.

In the wake of these publications, I have been invited to speak on the history of mathematics at dozens of U.S. colleges and universities, before the Australian Mathematical Society, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., on NPR's "Talk of the Nation: Science Friday", and on BBC Radio.