Paul J. Nahin (born November 26, 1940 in
Orange County, California
Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...
) is an American electrical engineer and author who has written 20 books on topics in
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
and
mathematics, including biographies of
Oliver Heaviside
Oliver Heaviside FRS (; 18 May 1850 – 3 February 1925) was an English self-taught mathematician and physicist who invented a new technique for solving differential equations (equivalent to the Laplace transform), independently developed ...
,
George Boole
George Boole (; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was a largely self-taught English mathematician, philosopher, and logician, most of whose short career was spent as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in ...
, and
Claude Shannon
Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as a "father of information theory".
As a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Inst ...
, books on mathematical concepts such as
Euler's formula
Euler's formula, named after Leonhard Euler, is a mathematical formula in complex analysis that establishes the fundamental relationship between the trigonometric functions and the complex exponential function. Euler's formula states that fo ...
and the
imaginary unit
The imaginary unit or unit imaginary number () is a solution to the quadratic equation x^2+1=0. Although there is no real number with this property, can be used to extend the real numbers to what are called complex numbers, using addition an ...
, and a number of books on the physics and philosophical puzzles of
time travel
Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a ...
.
Born in
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, he graduated from
Brea Olinda High School in 1958, and thereafter received a
B.S.
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...
from
Stanford University in 1962, an
M.S. from the
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
in 1963, and a
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
from the
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...
in 1972, all in
electrical engineering.
[Electrical and computer engineering expert offers annual Sampson Lecture](_blank)
''Bates College
Bates College () is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian Houses as some of the dormitories. It maintains of nature p ...
News'' (March 23, 2011).
He thereafter taught at
Harvey Mudd College, the University of Virginia, and the
Naval Postgraduate School in
Monterey, California.
, Nahin was an emeritus professor of
electrical engineering at the
University of New Hampshire
The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, m ...
.
Nahin received the 2017 Chandler Davis Prize for Excellence in Expository Writing in Mathematics
and, in 1979, the first Harry Rowe Mimno writing award
from the IEEE Areospace and Electronic Systems Society.
He married Patricia A. Telepka in 1962.
Works
*
(2020)
''Transients for Electrical Engineers: Elementary Switched-Circuit Analysis in the Time and Laplace Transform Domains (with a touch of MATLAB®)''(2018)
(2018)
*
ttps://books.google.com/books/about/In_Praise_of_Simple_Physics.html?id=FNghCwAAQBAJ ''In Praise of Simple Physics: The Science and Mathematics behind Everyday Questions''(2016)
* ''Inside Interesting Integrals'' (2014)
pbk edition''Holy Sci-Fi!: Where Science Fiction and Religion Intersect''(2014)
''Will You Be Alive in 10 Years?: And Numerous Other Curious Questions in Probability''(2014)
* ''The Logician and the Engineer: How George Boole and Claude Shannon Created the Information Age'' (2012)
2017 pbk edition''When Least Is Best: How Mathematicians Discovered Many Clever Ways to Make Things as Small (or as Large) as Possible''(2011);
''Number-Crunching: Taming Unruly Computational Problems from Mathematical Physics to Science Fiction''(2011)
* ''Dr. Euler's Fabulous Formula: Cures Many Mathematical Ills'' (2011
2017 pbk edition* ''Digital dice: computational solutions to practical probability problems'' (2008)
2013 pbk edition* ''Time Travel: A Writer's Guide to the Real Science of Plausible Time Travel'' (1997)
2011 pbk edition''Mrs. Perkins's Electric Quilt: And Other Intriguing Stories of Mathematical Physics''(2009)
* ''
Chases and Escapes: The Mathematics of Pursuit and Evasion'' (2007; reprinted in paperback 2012)
''Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction''(2001)
2nd Edition (2001)
* ''Duelling Idiots and Other Probability Puzzlers'' (2000)
2012 pbk edition* ''An Imaginary Tale: The Story of'' (1998)
* ''Oliver Heaviside: Sage in Solitude : The Life, Work, and Times of an Electrical Genius of the Victorian Age'' (1988)
[ Jed Buchwald (1991) '']Centaurus
Centaurus is a bright constellation in the southern sky. One of the largest constellations, Centaurus was included among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. ...
''. 2002 pbk edition
References
External links
Paul J. Nahin biography
at ''Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential econo ...
''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nahin, Paul J.
1940 births
Living people
Engineers from California
Mathematics popularizers
Stanford University alumni
California Institute of Technology alumni
University of California, Irvine alumni
American electrical engineers
20th-century American engineers
21st-century American engineers