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A K Peters, Ltd. was a publisher of scientific and technical books, specializing in mathematics and in computer graphics, robotics, and other fields of computer science. They published the journals Experimental Mathematics and the Journal of Graphics Tools, as well as mathematics books geared to children.

Background

Klaus Peters wrote a doctoral dissertation on complex manifolds at the University of Erlangen in 1962, supervised by Reinhold Remmert. He then joined Springer Verlag, becoming their first specialist mathematics editor. As a Springer director from 1971, he hired Alice Merker for Springer New York: they were married that year, and moved to Heidelberg. Leaving Springer, they founded Birkhäuser Boston in 1979; Birkhäuser ran into financial difficulties, and was taken over by Springer. Klaus and Alice then spent a period running a Boston office for Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and their imprint Academic Press. With the takeover of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich by General Cinema Corporation, the couple then found funding from Elwyn Berlekamp to start their own company.

Company history

The company was founded in November 1992 by Alice and Klaus Peters, and maintained as a privately held corporation by the Peters. In 2006 William Randolph Hearst III and David Mumford joined the board. According to Robert J. Lang, who published with them a book on origami and mathematics, A K Peters "was a business, but first and foremost really wanted to create books that were works of art." The Encyclopedia of the Consumer Movement noted A K Peters as "a small publisher who enjoys a fine reputation in Mathematics".

In 2010, A K Peters was acquired by CRC Press, which is owned by Taylor & Francis. In January 2012, Taylor & Francis terminated the employment of Alice and Klaus Peters. On July 7, 2014, Klaus Peters died.

Topics

Experimental mathematics

In 1992 David Epstein, Klaus Peters and Silvio Levy set up the journal Experimental Mathematics, with scope the use of computers in pure mathematics. At the time the Notices of the American Mathematical Society was running a "Computers and Mathematics" section, launched in 1988. The particular focus of the "experimental mathematics" included in the journal was the computer-assisted development of mathematical conjectures.

The traditional context in pure mathematics was that "journals only publish theorems"; in this area A K Peters innovated. Klaus Peters had a particular interest in visualization for experimentation in low-dimensional geometry. The Journal of Graphics Tools was published by A K Peters from 1996, after an approach from Andrew Glassner, then with Microsoft Research. They also published the journal Internet Mathematics from its 2003 founding by Fan Chung until the acquisition of the publisher by Taylor & Francis.

A K Peters, with the participation of Jonathan Borwein, published as books three collective works on experimental mathematics: Mathematics by Experiment and Experimentation in Mathematics in 2004, and Experimental Mathematics in Action (2007). Klaus Peters suggested a further book, The Computer as Crucible: An Introduction to Experimental Mathematics (2008), authored by Borwein and Keith Devlin.

Combinatorial game theory

Another topic frequently published by A K Peters, sparked by the interest of backer Elwyn Berlekamp, was combinatorial game theory. Their books in this area included Mathematical Go: Chilling Gets the Last Point (1994), The Dots and Boxes Game: Sophisticated Child's Play (2000), Hex Strategy: Making the Right Connections (2001), Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays (in four volumes, 2001–2004, 2nd edition, after the original two-volume edition by Academic Press in 1982), Connection Games: Variations on a Theme (2005), Lessons in Play: An Introduction to Combinatorial Game Theory (2007), and Games, Puzzles, and Computation (2009).

References

1. ^ Mays, Allison P. and Long, John (2001) "Publisher Profile: A.K. Peters, Ltd.,"Against the Grain: Vol. 13: Iss. 3, Article 18. DOI:https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.3498
2. Kutner, Ben (2011-02-02). "Math and monsters add up in children's book". Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved 2020-04-14.
3. Klaus Peters at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
4. Helgason, Sigurdur; Scott, Dana; Peters, Alice; Mumford, David (1 March 2015). "Remembering Klaus Peters" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 62 (3): 264–268. doi:10.1090/noti1222.
5. Robot Dreams: Build Your Own R2D2, Dave Hook, Library Journal, November 1, 2002. Accessed on line August 2, 2007.
6. "ATG interviews Alice and Klaus Peters, publishers, A K Peters", Against the Grain, 17 (6), Article 15, doi:10.7771/2380-176X.4597
7. Berlekamp, Elwyn. "Business". Elwyn Berlekamp's homepage.
8. ^ Bryan Marquard, Klaus Peters, 77; publisher of mathematical books, The Boston Globe, August 4, 2014
9. Brobeck, Stephen (1997). Encyclopedia of the Consumer Movement. ABC-CLIO. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-87436-987-8.
10. "David Epstein 1998". European Mathematical Information Service.
11. Bailey, David H. (2020). From Analysis to Visualization: A Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Jonathan M. Borwein, Callaghan, Australia, September 2017. Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3-030-36568-4.
12. Mumford, David; Series, Caroline; Wright, David (2002). Indra's Pearls: The Vision of Felix Klein. Cambridge University Press. p. viii. ISBN 978-0-521-35253-6.
13. Borwein, Jonathan; Bailey, David (2008). Mathematics by Experiment: Plausible Reasoning in the 21st Century. CRC Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-1-4398-6536-1.
14. Journal of Graphics Tools. Vol. 1. A K Peters. 1996. p. 2.
15. "Internet Mathematics goes arXiv overlay", Internet Mathematics, December 20, 2016. For Chung's founding of this journal see also Butler, Steve (March 2020), "The Mathematical Life of Fan Chung" (PDF), Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 67 (3): 327–335, doi:10.1090/noti2036
16. Borwein, Jonathan; Devlin, Keith (2008). The Computer as Crucible: An Introduction to Experimental Mathematics. CRC Press. p. ix. ISBN 978-1-4398-7691-6.
17. Review of Mathematical Go: Brian Hayes, American Scientist, JSTOR 29775500
18. Review of The Dots and Boxes Game: Cristina Irimia, Zbl 1058.00500
19. Review of Hex Strategy: Daniel Loeb, Zbl 0974.91006
20. Reviews of the Peters edition of Winning Ways: Leo Schneider, The Mathematics Teacher, JSTOR 20870963; Jacob McMillen, Math Horizons, JSTOR 25678588; Nick Lord, The Mathematical Gazette, JSTOR 3620944, JSTOR 3620702, JSTOR 3620703.
21. Reviews of Connection Games: Ned W. Schillow, The Mathematics Teacher, JSTOR 27971982; Jacob McMillen, Math Horizons, JSTOR 25678675
22. Review of Lessons in Play: Michael Ward, The Mathematical Gazette, JSTOR 40378761
23. Reviews of Games, Puzzles, and Computation: Oswin Aichholzer, Int. Math. Nachrichten, ; Liljana Babinkostova, Zbl 1175.91035; Leon Harkleroad, MAA Reviews, ; Joseph O'Rourke, SIAM Review, JSTOR 41062032

Further reading

• Home page Archived 2007-08-17 at the Wayback Machine of A K Peters, Ltd., accessed on line August 2, 2007.
• About Archived 2006-08-29 at the Wayback Machine, web page at A K Peters, Ltd., accessed on line August 2, 2007.

External links

• Company web site (now redirects to CRC Press)
• Wake Up —blog post by David Mumford

• Companies based in Natick, Massachusetts
• Book publishing companies based in Massachusetts
• Publishing companies established in 1992