George B. Arfken

George Brown Arfken (November 20, 1922 – October 8, 2020) was an American theoretical physicist and the author of several mathematical physics texts. He was a physics professor at Miami University from 1952 to 1983 and the chair of the Miami University physics department 1956–1972. He was an emeritus professor at Miami University. Arfken was also an authority on Canadian philately.

Education Arfken graduated from Montclair High School. He received a Bachelor of Engineering degree in chemical engineering from Yale University in 1943. He earned a master's degree in physics in 1948 and a doctorate in 1950, both at Yale. George married Mary Seet in 1999.

In retirement Arfken played a major role in developing the postal history of Canada for the 60-year period 1851–1911, following the pioneering work of Allan Steinhart. This was primarily a study of the postal rates, the routes the mail followed, and the postal markings on the envelopes and postcards. Arfken wrote one book on the United States' first postage-due stamps and then, with coauthors, nine books on the early Canadian postage and registration stamps. In addition there were over 250 articles in philatelic journals. George was inducted into the Order of the Beaver, the Fellowship of BNAPS, in 1996, and named a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada in 2001. He also received the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada’s Geldert Medal for best article in 1989. For BNAPEX convention exhibits between 1984 and 1996, he received four Gold medals and one Reserve Grand award.

He died in October 2020 at the age of 97.

Selected publications Articles 1949: S-Wave Proton-Proton Scattering from 0.2 to 40 Mev for the Yukawa and Gauss Error Potentials, Physical Review Volume 75 1953: A Vector Addition Coefficient Identity, Physical Review Volume 92 1961: Ionization of the interplanetary gas, Los Alamos Scientific Lab 1973: Comment on “Elementary Use of Spheroidal Coordinates”, American Journal of Physics Volume 41, Issue 12, pp. 1375

Books 1966: Mathematical Methods for Physicists 1989: University Physics , coauthored with David F. Griffing and Donald C. Kelly 1989: Canada's Small Queen Era - Postage Usage During the Small Queen Era, 1870-1897 2003: Essential Mathematical Methods for Physicists , coauthored with Hans J. Weber, Frank E. Harris