![]() IP: How did your venture into textbook writing come about? I knew I loved teaching from the moment I stepped into a classroom. When I taught as a graduate student at Stanford, they gave the TAs leeway in the recitation sections. JS: I was passionate about teaching from the beginning. JS: I had a full research program in harmonic analysis and supervised some Ph.D. IP: At that time, you were also doing research. I also ended up playing for some years professionally in the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. When I got my first job at McMaster University, in addition to playing chamber music, I was asked to become concertmaster of the McMaster Symphony. This pull between mathematics and music came into play again. While I was there I took up the study of the violin again, studying at the Guildhall School of Music. Then I followed Cooper to London and did two years of postdoctoral work at the University of London. It was crazy, but I wanted to finish up before he left. thesis to the time I defended it was one year. So from the time I got the subject of my Ph.D. I knew Cooper was leaving to take up the headship of Chelsea College at the University of London. He was at the University of Toronto only two years-the two years that I did my Ph.D. But I came back to the University of Toronto for my Ph.D. And there was the appeal of California weather. JS: I knew I wanted to specialize in analysis, and at that time virtually the entire math faculty at Stanford consisted of analysts. IP: You went to Stanford for your master’s degree. Mathematician and textbook author James Stewart sits at a custom-made desk in his Integral House office. That’s why I stayed in mathematics, though I have a real passion for music. In the end, I decided not to because I thought it would be better to be a mathematician whose hobby is music than a musician whose hobby is mathematics. At the end of second year, I came very, very close to switching from mathematics to music. I had studied the violin, ages 7 through 17, and I love music. So, being an obedient sort, I went into the math, physics, and chemistry program at the University of Toronto. My guidance councilor said I should go into science. ![]() JS: I was good at and interested in all subjects, including languages, history, and English, as well as music, because I played the violin, and I couldn’t decide what to go into. IP: What happened when you went to university? ![]() ![]() I don’t know what my fellow students thought, but I thought that was fascinating. In grade 11, he presented the proof on the board that the rational numbers are countable and that the real numbers aren’t. He was not your typical high school math teacher. James Stewart: When I was in grade 11, my math teacher at Earl Haig Collegiate was Ross Honsberger. His newly built home in Toronto, Integral House, has received much attention for its innovative design. Stewart is now Emeritus Professor at McMaster and on the faculty of the University of Toronto. ![]() The James Stewart Centre for Mathematics was opened in October, 2003, at McMaster University. Stewart was named a Fellow of the Fields Institute in 2002 and was awarded an honorary D.Sc. He is also co-author, with Lothar Redlin and Saleem Watson, of a series of college algebra and pre-calculus textbooks. Stewart’s books include a series of high school textbooks as well as a best-selling series of calculus textbooks published by Brooks/Cole. His research has been in harmonic analysis and functional analysis. After two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of London, he became Professor of Mathematics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. James Stewart obtained his master’s degree from Stanford University and his Ph.D. ![]()
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