Michael Spivak

Michael David Spivak (born 1940 in Queens, New York) is a mathematician specializing in differential geometry, an expositor of mathematics, and the founder of Publish-or-Perish Press. He is the author of the five-volume Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry. He received a Ph.D. from Princeton University under the supervision of John Milnor in 1964.

His book Calculus takes a very rigorous and theoretical approach to introductory calculus. It is used in calculus courses, particularly those with a pure mathematics emphasis, at many universities.

Spivak has also written The Joy of TeX: A Gourmet Guide to Typesetting With the AMS-TeX Macro Package and The Hitchhiker's Guide to Calculus. The famous book Morse Theory, by John Milnor, was based on lecture notes by Spivak and Robert Wells. Spivak's book Calculus on Manifolds (often referred to as little Spivak) is also rather infamous as being one of the most difficult undergraduate mathematics textbooks.

Spivak has lectured on elementary physics.^[1] His most recent book, Physics for Mathematicians: Mechanics I, which contains the material that these lectures stemmed from and more, was published on December 6, 2010.^[2]

In each of his books Spivak has hidden references to yellow pigs, an idea he apparently came up with at a bar while drinking with David C. Kelly.

Bibliography

• Calculus on Manifolds: A Modern Approach to Classical Theorems of Advanced Calculus, (1965)
• The Joy of TeX: A Gourmet Guide to Typesetting with the AMS-TeX Macro package, (1990)
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to Calculus, (1995)
• A Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry, (1999)
• Calculus, (2008)
• Physics for Mathematicians: Mechanics I, (2010)

See also

• Stable normal bundle
• Spivak pronoun

References

1. ^ Videos of Spivak's 2004 Pathway Lectures at Keio University and the text for Elementary mechanics from a mathematician's viewpoint.
2. ^ "Physics for Mathematicians, Mechanics I". Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Mathematicians-Mechanics-Michael-Spivak/dp/0914098322/. Retrieved November 4, 2010. 

External links

• Publish or Perish, Inc., company owned by Spivak
• 17 (Seventeen) and Yellow Pigs
• Michael Spivak @ Everything2.com
• Michael Spivak at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.

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Name	Spivak, Michael
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Date of birth	1940
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