Apostol was born on August 20, 1923, in
Helper, Utah. His parents, Emmanouil Apostolopoulos and Efrosini Papathanasopoulos, were Greek immigrants. Apostolopoulos's name was shortened to Mike Apostol when he obtained his United States citizenship, and Tom Apostol inherited this
Americanized surname. Thereafter Apostol was a faculty member at UC Berkeley,
MIT, and
Caltech. He was the author of several influential graduate and undergraduate level textbooks. Apostol was the creator and project director for
Project MATHEMATICS! producing videos which explore basic topics in high school mathematics. He helped popularize the
visual calculus devised by
Mamikon Mnatsakanian with whom he also wrote a number of papers, many of which appeared in the
American Mathematical Monthly. He also provided academic content for an acclaimed video lecture series on introductory physics,
The Mechanical Universe. In 2001, Apostol was elected into the
Academy of Athens as a Corresponding Member. He received the
Lester R. Ford Award for expository excellence in 2005, 2008, and 2010. In 2012, he became a fellow of the
American Mathematical Society. ==Bibliography==