Retired Mathematician Knows What 100 Feels Like

Mathematician Don Ballou became a centenarian on March 28.

“I’ve been very fortunate in a lot of ways, and I’ve had a lot of help,” said Ballou, reflecting upon a life that has included four decades as a mathematician--and membership in the MAA since 1935!

“I’m quite indebted to all the folks who have helped me along the way,” he said. Born in Chester, VT, Ballou developed a special liking for English and mathematics. After completing undergraduate work in English at Yale University, Ballou switched to mathematics when he concluded that that his mind “worked better,” he said, solving math problems rather than “talking around a subject” in English.

Upon receiving a graduate degree in mathematics from Harvard University, Ballou took a job as a mathematics professor at Georgia Tech, in 1934. “It was toward the end of the (Great) Depression,” Ballou recalled. “There weren’t many positions available." Then when Middlebury College extended an offer to join its mathematics faculty in 1942, Ballou moved back north.

The next three decades brought tremendous progress to the Middlebury's mathematics program, according to John D. Emerson, the college’s Charles A. Dana Professor of Mathematics. “Don introduced Middlebury students to the world of computers in the 1960s,” Emerson said. “He was a true visionary, and he arranged to have the programs his students wrote sent to MIT, where the punch cards were read, the programs run, and the results returned to Middlebury. Thus, Don was an early pioneer whose work paved the way for Middlebury’s first acquisition in 1974 of a computer to support academic instruction.”

Known for his keen mind and intellect, Ballou's qualities were always "balanced by humility and modesty." He "always was, and remains today, the quintessential 'gentleman,'" said Emerson.

Source: Addison County Independent