Benjamin Peirce

Benjamin Peirce (April 4, 1809, Salem, Massachusetts – October 6, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1880) was the first internationally known American-born mathematician and is sometimes called "the father of American mathematics". He was the first to recognize the linear associative algebra as an important mathematical structure and to give several of its properties.

Peirce was also a highly respected astronomer who helped determine the orbit of the newly discovered (1846) planet Neptune and calculated the perturbations produced between its own orbit and those of Uranus and other planets.

Benjamin Peirce is the father of Charles Sanders Peirce, a well-known philosopher and mathematician.

Life
Benjamin Peirce  graduated from Harvard  in 1829 and accepted a teaching position with George Bancroft at his Round Hill School in Northampton, Massachusetts. Two years later, at the  age  of  twenty-two, Peirce was asked to join the faculty at Harvard as a tutor in mathematics. He stayed there until  his  death  in  1880. In 1833 Peirce received his M.A. from Harvard and was promoted to professor of astronomy and mathematics.

In the same year Peirce married Sarah Hunt Mills;  four sons were born to the couple. The eldest,  James Mills  Peirce,  was for forty-five years a  prominent  mathematician  at  Harvard;  Charles  Sanders Peirce,  was known  for  his  work  in  mathematics  and  physics, but also recognized for  his  discoveries  in  logic  and  philosophy;  Benjamin  Mills  Peirce, brilliant but  undisciplined,  died  in  early  manhood; and  Herbert  Henry  Davis  Peirce was a  Cambridge businessman.

When the American Civil  War started, Peirce  was  at  first  a  pro-slavery  Democrat with many  good  friends  in  the  South. After the  fall  of  Fort  Sumter  Peirce  became  a  strong  Union  supporter.

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