Ross Lee Finney III; Math Teacher Wrote Calculus Textbooks

Ross Lee Finney III, 67, mathematician who wrote high school and college textbooks on calculus. Born in Springfield, Mass., Finney earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in math at the University of Michigan and was a Fulbright scholar at the Poincare Institute in Paris. He taught at Princeton University, the University of Illinois and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his long career, Finney also wrote several textbooks, book chapters, articles and research papers on the various functions of calculus. For about 25 years, he worked with George B. Thomas of MIT to produce and update the popular text “Calculus and Analytic Geometry,” now in its 10th edition. He also worked on the book “Calculus,” now in its third edition. The son of composer Ross Lee Finney, the math teacher and author helped develop curricula for teaching math in Africa and trained Peace Corps volunteers to teach there. Finney also helped improve the teaching of mathematics in China. On Aug. 3 in Carmel Valley, Calif., of a cancer-related illness.