The author of this book is a retired mathematical physicist who taught mathematics, physics and astronomy in several universities from 1957 to 1993.   He is an Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, with a home in Indianapolis, IN.   He has a beautiful wife Bonnie and four children: Amy, Laura, Kathleen and Daniel. Since 1975 he has been an active member of a Christian church, student of theology, Sunday School teacher and occasional substitute preacher. Bonnie has been an ordained Methodist pastor since 1979. Benjamin began his life in science as a teen-age amateur astronomer. From 1946 to 1948 he was a member of the AAVSO and sent monthly reports on variable stars to Harvard Observatory. He has a B.S. in Physics from Marshall U., an M.S. in Mathematics from The Carnegie Institue of Technology and a PhD in Mathematical Physics from the Ohio State University. Is a former member of several professional societies including SIAM, AMA, New York and Ohio Academies of Science and the Royal Astronomical Society. He is the author of several papers in Physics and Math journals and was a referee for the American Journal of Physics from 1974 to 1993. His research specialty was the relation between conservation laws and symmetries. Immediately before retirement his specialty was Numerical Analysis and Mathematical Modeling. He is the author of a textbook on Numerical Analysis still used by teachers and researchers worldwide.  

MS in mathematics earned at Carnegie Institute of Technology and PhD in Mathematics earned at the Ohio State University. NSF fellowship at Ohio State University (1963 to 1964).