| Parent company | CRC Press (Taylor & Francis) |
|---|---|
| Status | Acquired 2010 by CRC Press |
| Founded | 1992; 34 years ago (1992) |
| Founder | Alice and Klaus Peters |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | Natick, Massachusetts |
| Publication types | Books |
| Nonfiction topics | Computer science and mathematics |
| No. of employees | 7 (2001)[1] |
| Official website | akpeters |
A K Peters, Ltd. was a publisher of scientific and technical books, specializing inmathematics and incomputer graphics,robotics, and other fields ofcomputer science.[1] They published the journalsExperimental Mathematics and theJournal of Graphics Tools,[1] as well as mathematics books geared to children.[2]
Klaus Peters wrote a doctoral dissertation oncomplex manifolds at theUniversity of Erlangen in 1962, supervised byReinhold Remmert.[3] He then joinedSpringer Verlag, becoming their first specialist mathematics editor. As a Springer director from 1971, he hired Alice Merker for Springer New York: they were married that year, and moved toHeidelberg. Leaving Springer, they foundedBirkhäuser Boston in 1979; Birkhäuser ran into financial difficulties, and was taken over by Springer. Klaus and Alice then spent a period running a Boston office forHarcourt Brace Jovanovich and their imprintAcademic Press. With the takeover of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich byGeneral Cinema Corporation, the couple then found funding fromElwyn Berlekamp to start their own company.[4]
The company was founded in November 1992 by Alice and Klaus Peters,[1][5] and maintained as a privately held corporation by the Peters.[6] In 2006William Randolph Hearst III andDavid Mumford joined the board.[7] According toRobert J. Lang, who published with them a book onorigami and mathematics, A K Peters "was a business, but first and foremost [Klaus] really wanted to create books that were works of art."[8] TheEncyclopedia of the Consumer Movement noted A K Peters as "a small publisher who enjoys a fine reputation in Mathematics".[9]
In 2010, A K Peters was acquired byCRC Press, which is owned byTaylor & Francis. In January 2012, Taylor & Francis terminated the employment of Alice and Klaus Peters. On July 7, 2014, Klaus Peters died.[8]
In 1992David Epstein, Klaus Peters and Silvio Levy set up the journalExperimental Mathematics, with scope the use of computers inpure mathematics.[10] At the time theNotices of the American Mathematical Society was running a "Computers and Mathematics" section, launched in 1988. The particular focus of the "experimental mathematics" included in the journal was the computer-assisted development ofmathematical conjectures.[11]
The traditional context in pure mathematics was that "journals only publish theorems"; in this area A K Peters innovated.[12] Klaus Peters had a particular interest invisualization for experimentation inlow-dimensional geometry.[13] TheJournal of Graphics Tools was published by A K Peters from 1996, after an approach fromAndrew Glassner, then withMicrosoft Research.[14] They also published the journalInternet Mathematics from its 2003 founding byFan Chung until the acquisition of the publisher by Taylor & Francis.[15]
A K Peters, with the participation ofJonathan Borwein, published as books three collective works onexperimental mathematics:Mathematics by Experiment andExperimentation in Mathematics in 2004, andExperimental Mathematics in Action (2007). Klaus Peters suggested a further book,The Computer as Crucible: An Introduction to Experimental Mathematics (2008), authored by Borwein andKeith Devlin.[16]
Another topic frequently published by A K Peters, sparked by the interest of backerElwyn Berlekamp, wascombinatorial game theory. Their books in this area includedMathematical Go: Chilling Gets the Last Point (1994),[17]The Dots and Boxes Game: Sophisticated Child's Play (2000),[18]Hex Strategy: Making the Right Connections (2001),[19]Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays (in four volumes, 2001–2004, 2nd edition, after the original two-volume edition by Academic Press in 1982),[20]Connection Games: Variations on a Theme (2005),[21]Lessons in Play: An Introduction to Combinatorial Game Theory (2007),[22] andGames, Puzzles, and Computation (2009).[23]
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