PASADENA, Calif.—Tom M. Apostol, professor of mathematics emeritus and the creator and project director of Project MATHEMATICS! at the California Institute of Technology, has been elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Athens.
Apostol, who is an American of Greek descent, is one of 355 members of the Academy, which was first established by Greek philosopher Plato and reconstituted by government decree in 1926. Only 40 chairs are occupied by foreign members.
The purpose of the academy is to cultivate and promote the sciences, letters and fine arts, and human knowledge. It does so by acting as a forum for lectures, issuing publications, setting up labs for academic research, supporting archaeological excavations, hosting competitions, and awarding medals and scholarships. The academy also submits expert opinions and decisions to the Greek government on matters that fall within its sphere of responsibility.
Apostol will be officially welcomed into the academy in Greece on May 8 and will give a lecture to the academy on "A Visual Approach to Calculus Problems in a Style Reminiscent of Archimedes."
Since joining the Caltech faculty in 1950, Apostol has earned an international reputation for his mathematical research and textbooks, some of which have been translated into Greek, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Farsi. He spent four months in Greece as a visiting professor of mathematics at the University of Patras in 1978.
He is the producer of Project MATHEMATICS!, a series of videotapes and books for high school students. The tapes explore basic topics in mathematics in ways that cannot be done at the chalkboard or in a textbook. They use music, special effects and computer animation and are distributed on a nonprofit basis. The goal is to attract young people to mathematics and they have – more than 10 million students have seen the tapes, which have won many honors at film and video festivals. ### The Project MATHEMATICS! Web site is at www.projectmathematics.com. CONTACT: Jill Perry, Media Relations Director (626) 395-3226, jperry@caltech.edu
