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PEIRCE, BENJAMIN (1809-188o)

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 59 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PEIRCE, See also:BENJAMIN (1809-188o) , See also:American mathematician and astronomer, was See also:born at See also:Salem, See also:Massachusetts, on the 4th of See also:April 1809. Graduating at Harvard See also:College in 1829, he became mathematical See also:tutor there in 1831 and See also:professor in 1833. He had already assisted Nathaniel See also:Bowditch in his See also:translation of the Mecanique See also:celeste, and now produced a See also:series of mathematical textbooks characterized by the brevity and terseness which made his teaching unattractive to inapt pupils. See also:Young men of See also:talent, on the contrary, found his instruction most stimulating, and after Bowditch's See also:death in 1838 Peirce stood first among American mathematicians. His researches into the perturbations of See also:Uranus and See also:Neptune (Prot. Amer. Acad., 1848) gave him a wider fame; he became in 1849 consulting astronomer to the American Nautical See also:Almanac, and for this See also:work prepared new tables of the See also:moon (1852). A discussion of the See also:equilibrium of See also:Saturn's rings led him to conclude in 1855 that they must be of a fluid nature. From 1867 to 1874 he was See also:superintendent of the See also:Coast Survey. In 1857 he published his best known work, the See also:System of See also:Analytical See also:Mechanics, which was, however, surpassed in brilliant originality by his Linear Associative See also:Algebra (lithographed privately in a few copies, 187o; reprinted in the Amer. Journ. Math., 1882).

He died at See also:

Cambridge, See also:Mass., on the 6th of See also:October 1880. See New Amer. Cyclopae.dia (See also:Ripley and See also:Dana), vol. xiii. (1861) ; T. J. J. See, Popular See also:Astronomy, iii. 49; Nature, xxii. 607; R. See also:Grant, Hist. of Phys. Astronomy, pp. 205, 292; J.

C. See also:

Poggendorff, Biog. lit. Handworterbuch; See also:Month. Notices See also:Roy. Astr. Society, xli. 191.

End of Article: PEIRCE, BENJAMIN (1809-188o)

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