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Benjamin Peirce was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on April 4, 1809. He was the son of Benjamin Peirce, the librarian of Harvard, who died in 1831, and is well known in connection with his posthumous History of that University. He graduated from Harvard in 1829 and was made Tutor in 1831 and Professor in 1833. In 1842 he was appointed Perkins Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics at the University and occupied this chair until his death. He also held the offices of Consulting Astronomer of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac from 1853 to 1867 and Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey from 1867 to 1874. From 1874 until his death he was Consulting Geometer of the Coast Survey. He died at his house in Cambridge, Mass., on October 6, 1880, after an illness of about three months.
The proof sheets of Bowditch's translation of Laplace's Mécanique Céleste were read by Peirce. On page 61 of the Memoir of Bowditch, prefixed to the fourth volume (1839) of this elaborate work, it is stated that Peirce's "revision of the entire work, when in the process of publication, and vigilance in detecting typographical errors, Dr. Bowditch always valued as an additional means of ensuring its accuracy;" and on p. 140, "Whenever 120 pages were printed, Dr. Bowditch had them bound in a pamphlet form and sent them to Professor Peirce, who in this manner read the work for the first time. He returned the pages with the list of errata, which were then corrected with a pen or otherwise in every copy of the whole edition." The Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Papers contains the titles of 59 papers by Peirce, the earliest of which appeared in the Mathematical Miscellany for 1838 and related to Fox Talbot's researches upon the Integral Calculus. Many of his papers were published in Gould's Astronomical Journal and in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Boston. In 1842 the first number appeared of the Cambridge Miscellany of Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, edited by Benjamin Peirce and James Lovering; but only four quarterly numbers were issued. It chiefly contained solutions to problems. About 1845 he published textbooks on trigonometry, geometry and differential calculus; but his largest work of this kind was his Analytic Mechanics, which appeared in 1855 and was dedicated to the memory of "my master in science, Nathaniel Bowditch, the father of American Geometry." The Mechanics is a beautifully printed quarto volume and covers a wide range of subjects; but the mathematics is somewhat embarrassed by the notations used. The list of subscribers to this work shows the general estimation in which Peirce was held by his countrymen at that time. In 1853 Peirce's Tables of the Moon were published. These were described at length in the Monthly Notices, vol. xiv. pp. 26-32 (1853). Peirce was the author of memoirs upon the Saturnian system, the lunar theory, the discovery of Neptune, the rejection of doubtful observations in the Method of Least Squares, &c. and he also published a treatise entitled Curves, Functions and Forces. One of the best known of his more recent writings is his Linear Associative Algebra (Washington, 1870), an account of which was given by Spottiswoode in vol. iv. p. 152 of the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society. He was one of the founders of the American National Academy of Sciences. In 1853 he presided over the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected an Associate of this Society on April 12, 1850, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1852. He received the degree of LL.D. in 1847 from the University of North Carolina, and in 1867 from Harvard University.
He leaves a widow, three sons, and a daughter. Two of his sons, J. M. Peirce and C. S. Peirce, are well-known in science. The former is Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University, and the latter is the author of investigations upon the application of algebra to logic, and of photometric researches which were referred to in the Annual Report for 1879 (Monthly Notices, xxxix. p. 270).
The proof sheets of Bowditch's translation of Laplace's Mécanique Céleste were read by Peirce. On page 61 of the Memoir of Bowditch, prefixed to the fourth volume (1839) of this elaborate work, it is stated that Peirce's "revision of the entire work, when in the process of publication, and vigilance in detecting typographical errors, Dr. Bowditch always valued as an additional means of ensuring its accuracy;" and on p. 140, "Whenever 120 pages were printed, Dr. Bowditch had them bound in a pamphlet form and sent them to Professor Peirce, who in this manner read the work for the first time. He returned the pages with the list of errata, which were then corrected with a pen or otherwise in every copy of the whole edition." The Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Papers contains the titles of 59 papers by Peirce, the earliest of which appeared in the Mathematical Miscellany for 1838 and related to Fox Talbot's researches upon the Integral Calculus. Many of his papers were published in Gould's Astronomical Journal and in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Boston. In 1842 the first number appeared of the Cambridge Miscellany of Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, edited by Benjamin Peirce and James Lovering; but only four quarterly numbers were issued. It chiefly contained solutions to problems. About 1845 he published textbooks on trigonometry, geometry and differential calculus; but his largest work of this kind was his Analytic Mechanics, which appeared in 1855 and was dedicated to the memory of "my master in science, Nathaniel Bowditch, the father of American Geometry." The Mechanics is a beautifully printed quarto volume and covers a wide range of subjects; but the mathematics is somewhat embarrassed by the notations used. The list of subscribers to this work shows the general estimation in which Peirce was held by his countrymen at that time. In 1853 Peirce's Tables of the Moon were published. These were described at length in the Monthly Notices, vol. xiv. pp. 26-32 (1853). Peirce was the author of memoirs upon the Saturnian system, the lunar theory, the discovery of Neptune, the rejection of doubtful observations in the Method of Least Squares, &c. and he also published a treatise entitled Curves, Functions and Forces. One of the best known of his more recent writings is his Linear Associative Algebra (Washington, 1870), an account of which was given by Spottiswoode in vol. iv. p. 152 of the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society. He was one of the founders of the American National Academy of Sciences. In 1853 he presided over the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected an Associate of this Society on April 12, 1850, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1852. He received the degree of LL.D. in 1847 from the University of North Carolina, and in 1867 from Harvard University.
He leaves a widow, three sons, and a daughter. Two of his sons, J. M. Peirce and C. S. Peirce, are well-known in science. The former is Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University, and the latter is the author of investigations upon the application of algebra to logic, and of photometric researches which were referred to in the Annual Report for 1879 (Monthly Notices, xxxix. p. 270).
Benjamin Peirce's obituary appeared in Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 41:4 (1881), 191-193.