PEIRCE, BENJAMIN

born , April 4, 1809, Salem, Mass., U.S. died Oct. 6, 1880, Cambridge, Mass. American mathematician, astronomer, and educator who computed the general perturbations of the planets Uranus and Neptune. Peirce graduated from Harvard College in 1829 and accepted a teaching position with George Bancroft at his Round Hill School in Northampton, Mass. Two years later he was asked to join the faculty at Harvard as a tutor in mathematics. Much of Peirce's reputation was based on two of his early works. The first was his solution to a mathematical problem proposed in the journal Mathematical Diary in which he proved that there is no odd perfect number with fewer than four distinct prime factors; the second was his commentary and revision of Nathaniel Bowditch's translation of the first four volumes of the Marquis de Laplace's Trait de mcanique cleste (Treatise on Celestial Mechanics). In 1833 Peirce received his M.A. from Harvard University and was named university professor of astronomy and mathematics. During the next decade he wrote a series of textbooks and monographs dealing with trigonometry, algebra, geometry, astronomy, and navigation, as well as An Elementary Treatise on Sound (1836), based on the work of physicist J.F.W. Herschel. Peirce was instrumental in establishing the Harvard Observatory, and in 1842 he became Harvard's Perkins professor of mathematics and astronomy, a position he held until his death. In this capacity he helped determine the orbit of the newly discovered planet Neptune and calculated the perturbations produced between its own orbit and those of Uranus and other planets. Considered the leading American mathematician of his day, Peirce was named to a five-man committee by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1847 to plan and organize what was to be the Smithsonian Institution. From 1849 to 1867 Peirce served as consulting astronomer to the newly created American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, and in 1852 he began a long association with the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Starting as director of longitude determinations, he eventually became superintendent of the Survey (186774) and oversaw the production of the first geodetic map of the country independent of local surveys. Peirce also served, in 1863, as one of the 50 incorporators of the National Academy of Science. His best work is Linear Associative Algebra (1870), a study of possible systems of multiple algebras.