The Mathematics that George Washington Studied
Professor Frederick Rickey
U.S.M.A. at West Point
As a teenager, George Washington compiled two notebooks (179 pages) about the mathematics he studied: decimal arithmetic, geometry, logarithms and trigonometry, and surveying. We will examine an example of each of these, pointing out (when we can) where the explanations and problems came from, as well as a few errors in the manuscript.
These notebooks have had a hard life. For half of the nineteenth century they were on loan to biographers who treated them casually and dispersed some pages. We shall describe some of our success in locating these missing pages. Once they were sold to the government they were disbound and the pages reordered. This troublesome issue will also be described.
V. Frederick Rickey, a logician turned historian, retired in July 2011 because he could not get any work done while working. Now he is so busy with historical research that he still can’t get everything done. After earning three degrees from the University of Notre Dame (Ph.D. 1968) he went to Bowling Green State University where he rose through the professorial ranks to become a Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus. In 1993 he received one of the first MAA Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. He “retired” in 1998 and joined the faculty at West Point (where the cadets called him “Sir” far too often).
He has been on leave six times, including as Visiting Mathematician at the MAA Headquarters. While there he was involved in the founding of Math Horizons, built its first gopher and web pages, and wrote a successful NSF grant for an Institute for the History of Mathematics and Its Use in Teaching (IHMT).
He has broad interests in the history of mathematics and is especially interested in the development of the calculus. He loves teaching and enjoys giving lectures to mathematicians and mathematics students about the history of their field (something he continues to do in retirement).
