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More on Chauvenet.

On Thu, 16 Sep 2004, George Huxtable wrote:

> have been an academic astronomer and mathematician: does anyone know
> better, about any maritime experience?

Before his appointment to St Louis he was Professor of mathematics
"in the US Navy" (whatever this means). This is from his official
biography:

"After participating in a series of magnetic experiments at
Girard College in Philadelphis, he was appointed as a
professor of mathematics in the US Navy in 1841.
In this capacity he served briefly aboard the
US Steamer Mississippi, after which he became head of the
shore
Nava; School in Philadelphia..."

This is from his short biography published in the book
"The Chauvenet Papers, vol. I, J. C. Abbott, ed.,
Math. Association
of America, 1978.

The two volume edition is a collection of expossitory papers
in mathematics that brought to their authors the
Chauvenet Prize.
The Chauvenet Prize is awarded by math. Association of America since
1925 for "high-grade expository articles".

I learned the name of Chauvenet in 1999 when I was looking for a reference
book in spherical trigonometry.
(This was for my math research, not for the navigation hobby!)
Soon I discovered that there are no advanced trigonometry books written
in XX century! This is not a legitimate math research subject anymore
since approximately the middle of XIX century.
And undergraduate textbooks in our library were not advanced enough
for my need.

Finally I found in my university library the excellent "Tretease
on Plain and Spherical Trigonometry" by Chauvenet (J. B. Lippincott Co,
Philadelphia 1850). This is by far the best and most comprehensive
trigonometry book I know.

I cite it in my research paper (No 93 in the list of
my papers on http://www.math.purdue.edu/~eremenko/papers.html)

Alex.

   

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