Jim Hefferon (born October 12, 1958) is a Professor of Mathematics at Saint Michael's College. He is known for his award-winning textbook on linear algebra that is available for free download, with LaTeX source, and for his activity in the TeX community.
Jim Hefferon grew up in Connecticut and attended the University of Connecticut, where he obtained a PhD in mathematics in recursion theory as a student of Manuel Lerman.
Jim Hefferon moved to Vermont in 1990 to take a job at Saint Michael's College. He became an active member of the Linux community, including founding the Vermont Area Group of Unix Enthusiasts.
In 2020, for his open-content undergraduate textbook Linear Algebra, [1] Hefferon won the Daniel Solow Author's Award of the Mathematical Association of America, [2] with the award citation noting the book's "clear writing style, tremendous variety of exercises, amenability to use with active learning strategies, and […] careful attention to detail" and its status as one of "the most successful and the most popular" open textbooks. Since 1996, [2] [3] Hefferon's Linear Algebra has been available for free download on the World Wide Web under the GNU Free Documentation License or a Creative Commons license. [4] As of 2020 [update] , the book is in its fourth edition and is published by Orthogonal Publishing L3C.
Other textbooks of Hefferon's, made available under the same terms, are an inquiry-based Introduction to Proofs [2] [5] and a textbook on computer science, Theory of Computation [2] [6] .
Hefferon is a member of the board of directors of the TeX Users Group (TUG), serving from 2019 to 2023. [7] [ needs update ] He previously had been a member of the board from 2003 to 2017, serving as vice-president of TUG from 2011 until 2016, [7] when he became acting president of TUG when the board of directors suspended the previous president, Kaveh Bazargan. [8] [9]
In 1999 Jim became one of the core maintainers of the TeX archive CTAN, running one of three core CTAN archive sites until 2011. [10] [11] [12]
Jim is a Ham radio enthusiast, [11] holding the Extra Class license KE1AZ, [13] [14] and is active with Morse code.
LaTeX is a software system for typesetting documents. LaTeX markup describes the content and layout of the document, as opposed to the formatted text found in WYSIWYG word processors like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer and Apple Pages. The writer uses markup tagging conventions to define the general structure of a document, to stylise text throughout a document, and to add citations and cross-references. A TeX distribution such as TeX Live or MiKTeX is used to produce an output file suitable for printing or digital distribution.
Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning linear equations such as:
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The device independent file format (DVI) is the output file format of the TeX typesetting program, designed by David R. Fuchs and implemented by Donald E. Knuth in 1982. Unlike the TeX markup files used to generate them, DVI files are not intended to be human-readable; they consist of binary data describing the visual layout of a document in a manner not reliant on any specific image format, display hardware or printer. DVI files are typically used as input to a second program which translates DVI files to graphical data. For example, most TeX software packages include a program for previewing DVI files on a user's computer display; this program is a driver. Drivers are also used to convert from DVI to popular page description languages and for printing.
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K. S. S. Nambooripad was an Indian mathematician who has made fundamental contributions to the structure theory of regular semigroups. Nambooripad was also instrumental in popularising the TeX software in India and also in introducing and championing the cause of the free software movement in India.
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Chandroth Vasudevan Radhakrishnan aka CV Radhakrishnan aka CVR, is an Indian free software developer, entrepreneur and the Founder of River Valley Technologies. He is also one of the founding members of TeX Users Group in India.
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David Corydon Walden was an American computer scientist who contributed to the engineering development of the ARPANET, a precursor of the modern internet. He specifically contributed to the Interface Message Processor, which was the packet switching node for the ARPANET. Walden was a contributor to IEEE Computer Society's Annals of the History of Computing and was a member of the TeX Users Group.
Then, in 1999 it [the core CTAN site in the United States] moved to Saint Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont, where it was maintained by Jim Hefferon. In 2011 it left the core CTAN sites.