Dr. John C. Stevenson

Emeritus Professor of Mathematics

LIU/C.W. Post

 

What I do at C.W. Post

 

Contact Information

 

Public Lectures

 

Current Projects

 

Personal Interests

 

Curriculum Vitae

 

 

“The justification for a university is that it preserves the connexions between knowledge and the zest for life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning.”

 

A.N Whitehead, speaking to the American Association of the Collegiate Schools of Business, 1927

 



 

My role at C.W. Post

In the spring of 2002 I retired after forty years of teaching.  I am now Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and continue to give lectures from time to time.

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Contact Information

Electronic mail address

John.stevenson@liu.edu

Web address for course materials

Office

Pell Hall, Room 234

Office phone

516-299-2512

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Current Projects

Beating into the Solar Wind: A gentleman's guide to the magnetosphere.

An account of our knowledge about that part of the Earth's environment dominated by the geomagnetic field, the sun and how it contributes to auroras and geomagnetic storms. The account is historical; emphasizing that science is a very human enterprise, subject to all our foibles and perceptual limitations: mostly we see what we already believe and reject the rest until no other choice remains but to have a scientific revolution.

Lectures on Climate Change

The causes of global climate change, particularly the increase in mean global temperature at the surface, makes headlines daily, but is little understood by the general public.  This is especially true of the role played by changes the sun.  Solar irradiance does change over time and therefore has a forcing effect on global temperature.  A brief power point presentation on these matters can be found HERE.

 

 


 

Biographical Information

After growing up in Snohomish, WA (then a rural hamlet) I came to the East Coast to study engineering physics at Cornell University, completing my undergraduate degree in mathematics at New York University followed by a MS from NYU and doctoral degree from Adelphi University. I joined the C.W. Post faculty as an instructor in 1963 and have been employed here since, serving as lecturer and, at various times, as an administrator.

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Personal Interests

My other interests are in musical performance (violin and voice), sailing, mountain trekking, gardening and photography.

I also pursue (off and on) a semi-genealogical project about an ancestor who came to New Amsterdam in 1631 with the Van Rensselaer settlement near what is now Albany.

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