Addison Fischer receives WVU Distinguished Alumni Award
On 5 February 2010, in ceremonies at Erickson Alumni Hall, Addison M. Fischer was presented
the WVU Distinguished Alumni Award. Fischer received his bachelor and master degrees from
WVU. Addison founded several highly successful software companies, built a school in Naples,
Florida, has made major contributions towards saving the Amazon rain forests, and among other
achievements, he has made major contributions to National Security with his knowledge of cryptology,
As a student circa 1962 at Washington Irving High School in Clarksburg, W. Va., Addison Fischer
began studying advanced mathematics on his own, and wrote a long paper on Extensions of Calculus.
His paper was sent to Prof. H. W. Gould at West Viginia University who determined that Fischer
was some kind of really new genius. Indeed Fischer showed Gould how he had developed axioms
and theorems to define factorials of complex numbers, and n-th iterations and derivatives of a function
when n is a complex number. On his own he had figured out what is
known as the Cauchy Integral Theorem, a Riemann surface, and other very
advanced topics. He was one of the most remarkably
bright mathematics students ever at WVU. At WVU, Fischer turned to computers and developed
fantastic software, which became the basis of his later successful ventures. By the age of 32, he told
Gould he had "retired" after making $16,000,000 on his software ventures. The rest of his climb to
fame is history.
Addison Fischer
Photo by
H. W. Gould
Addison Fischer receives the Distinguished Alumni Photo by H. W. Gould
WVU President James Clements, Addison Fischer, and colleague of Fischer
Professor Henry Gould, Addison Fischer, and Mrs. Jean Gould
Revised 26 April 2010