The Mathematical Association of America's Chauvenet Prize

The Chauvenet Prize, consisting of a prize of $1,000 and a certificate is awarded at the Annual Meeting of the Association to the author of an outstanding expository article on a mathematical topic by a member of the Association. First awarded in 1925, the Prize is named for William Chauvenet, a professor of mathematics at the United States Naval Academy. It was established through a gift in 1925 from J.L. Coolidge, then MAA President. Winners of the Chauvenet Prize are among the most distinguished of mathematical expositors.

List of Recipients

2003 Thomas C. Hales, Cannonballs and honeycombs, Notices of the AMS, 47 (2000), 440-449.

2002 Ellen Gethner, Stan Wagon, and Brian Wick, A Stroll through the Gaussian Primes, American Mathematical Monthly 105 (1998), 327-337.

2001 Carolyn S. Gordon and David L. Webb, You can't hear the shape of a drum, American Scientist 84 (1996), 46-55.

2000 Don Zagier, Newman's short proof of the prime number theorem, Amer. Math. Monthly 104 (1997), 705-708.

1999 Michael I. Rosen, Niels Hendrik Abel and equations of the fifth degree, Amer. Math. Monthly 102 (1995), 495-505.

1998 Alan Edelman and Eric Kostlan, How many zeros of a random polynomial are real?, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 32 (1995), 1-37.

1997 Tom Hawkins, The birth of Lie's theory of groups, Math. Intelligencer 16 (1994), 6-17.

1996 Joan Birman, New Points of View in Knot Theory, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.), 28 (1993), 253-287.

1995 Donald G. Saari, A Visit to the Newtonian N-body Problem Via Elementary Complex Variables, Amer. Math. Monthly 97 (1990), 105-119.

1994 Barry Mazur, Number Theory as Gadfly, Amer. Math. Monthly 98 (1991), 593-610.

1993 David H. Bailey, Jonathan M. Borwein and Peter B. Borwein, Ramanujan, Modular Equations, and Approximations to Pi, or, How to Compute One Billion Digits of Pi, Amer. Math. Monthly 96 (1989), 201-219.

1992 Steven G. Krantz, What is Several Complex Variables?, Amer. Math. Monthly 94 (1987), 236-256.

1991 W.B. Raymond Lickorish and Kenneth C. Millett, The New Polynomial Invariants of Knots and Links, Math. Mag. 61 (1988), 2-23.

1990 David Allen Hoffman, The Computer-Aided Discovery of New Embedded Minimal Surfaces, Math. Intelligencer 9 (1987), 8-21.

1989 Jacob Korevaar, Ludwig Bieberbach's Conjecture and Its Proof by Louis de Branges, Amer. Math. Monthly 93 (1986), 505-514.

1988 Steve Smale, On the Efficiency of Algorithms in Analysis, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 13 (1985), 87-121.

1987 James H. Wilkinson, The Perfidious Polynomial, Studies in Numerical Analysis, 1-28, MAA Stud. Math., 24, Math. Assoc. America, Washington, DC, 1984.

1986 George Miel, Of Calculations Past and Present: The Archimedean Algorithm, Amer. Math. Monthly 90 (1983), 17-35.

1985 Carl Pomerance, Recent Developments in Primality Testing, Math. Intelligencer 3 (1981), 97-105.

1984 R. Arthur Knoebel, Exponentials Reiterated, Amer. Math. Monthly 88 (1981), 235-252.

1983 No award was given.

1982 No award was given.

1981 Kenneth I. Gross, On the Evolution of Noncommutative Harmonic Analysis, Amer. Math. Monthly 85 (1978), 525-548.

1980 Heinz Bauer, Approximation and Abstract Boundaries, Amer. Math. Monthly 85 (1978), 632-647.

1979 Neil J.A. Sloane, Error-Correcting Codes and Invariant Theory: New Applications of a Nineteenth-Century Technique, Amer. Math. Monthly 84 (1977), 82-107.

1978 Shreeram S. Abhyankar, Historical Ramblings in Algebraic Geometry and Related Algebra, Amer. Math. Monthly 83 (1976), 409-448.

1977 W. Gilbert Strang, Piecewise Polynomials and the Finite Element Method, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 79 (1973), 1128-1137.

1976 Lawrence Zalcman, Real Proofs of Complex Theorems (and vice versa), Amer. Math. Monthly 81 (1974), 115-137.

1975 M.D. Davis and Reuben Hersh, Hilbert's 10th Problem, Scientific American 229, (1973), no. 5, 84-91.

1974 Peter D. Lax, The Formation and Decay of Shock Waves, Amer. Math. Monthly 79 (1972), 227-241.

1973 C.D. Olds, The Simple Continued Fraction Expansion of e, Amer. Math. Monthly 77 (1970), 968-974.

1972 Jean Francois Treves, On Local Solvability of Linear Partial Differential Equations, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 76 (1970), 552-571.

1971 Norman Levinson, A Motivated Account of an Elementary Proof of the Prime Number Theorem, Amer. Math. Monthly 76 (1969), 225-245.

1970 Shiing Shen Chern, Curves and Surfaces in Euclidean Space, Studies in Global Geometry and Analysis, 16-56, MAA Stud. Math., 4, Math. Assoc. America, Washington, DC, 1967.

1968 Mark Kac, Can One Hear the Shape of a Drum?, Amer. Math. Monthly 73 (1966), 1-23.

1967 Guido Weiss, Harmonic Analysis, Studies in Real and Complex Analysis, 124-178, MAA Stud. Math., 3, Math. Assoc. America, Washington, DC, 1965.

1965 Jack K. Hale & Joseph P. LaSalle, "Differential Equations: Linearity vs. Nonlinearity," SIAM Review 5 (1963), 249-272.

1964 Leon Henkin, "Are Logic and Mathematics Identical?," Science 138 (1962), 788-794.

1963 Philip J. Davis, "Leonhard Euler's Integral: An Historical Profile of the Gamma Function," Amer. Math. Monthly 66 (1959), 849-869.

1960 Cornelius Lanczos, "Linear Systems in Self-Adjoint Form," Amer. Math. Monthly 65 (1958), 665-679.

1956 R.H. Bruck, "Recent Advances in the Foundations of Euclidean Plane Geometry," Amer. Math. Monthly 62 (1955), 2-17.

1953 E.J. McShane, "Partial Orderings and Moore-Smith Limits," Amer. Math. Monthly 59 (1952), 1-11.

1950 Mark Kac, "Random Walk and the Theory of Brownian Motion," Amer. Math. Monthly 54 (1947), 369-391.

1947 Paul R. Halmos, "The Foundations of Probability," Amer. Math. Monthly 51 (1944), 493-510.

1944 R.H. Cameron, "Some Introductory Exercises in the Manipulation of Fourier Transforms," Nat. Math. Mag. 15 (1941), 331-356.

1941 Saunders MacLane, "Modular Fields," Amer. Math. Monthly 47 (1940), 67-84, and "Some Recent Advances in Algebra," Amer. Math. Monthly 46 (1939), 3-19.

1938 G.T. Whyburn, "On the Structure of Continua," Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 42 (1936), 49-73.

1935 Dunham Jackson, "The Convergence of Fourier Series," Amer. Math. Monthly 41 (1934), 67-84; "Series of Orthogonal Polynomials," Annals of Mathematics 34 (1933), 527-545; "Orthogonal Trigonometric Sums," Annals of Mathematics 34 (1933), 799-814.

1932 G.H. Hardy, "An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers," Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 35 (1929), 778-818.

1929 T.H. Hildebrandt, "The Borel Theorem and Its Generalizations," Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 32 (1926), 423-474.

1925 G.A. Bliss, "Algebraic Functions and Their Divisors," Annals of Mathematics 26 (1924), 95-124.