Tom M. Apostol

Tom Mike Apostol ( ; August 20, 1923 – May 8, 2016) was an American mathematician and professor at the California Institute of Technology specializing in analytic number theory, best known as the author of widely used mathematical textbooks, including Calculus in two volumes.

Life and career Apostol was born on August 20, 1923, in Helper, Utah. His parents, Emmanouil Apostolopoulos and Efrosini Papathanasopoulos, were Greek immigrants. Apostolopoulos's name was shortened to Mike Apostol when he obtained his United States citizenship, and Tom Apostol inherited this Americanized surname. Thereafter Apostol was a faculty member at UC Berkeley, MIT, and Caltech. He was the author of several influential graduate and undergraduate level textbooks.

Apostol was the creator and project director for Project MATHEMATICS! producing videos which explore basic topics in high school mathematics. He helped popularize the visual calculus devised by Mamikon Mnatsakanian with whom he also wrote a number of papers, many of which appeared in the American Mathematical Monthly. He also provided academic content for an acclaimed video lecture series on introductory physics, The Mechanical Universe.

In 2001, Apostol was elected into the Academy of Athens as a Corresponding Member. He received the Lester R. Ford Award for expository excellence in 2005, 2008, and 2010. In 2012, he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.