"Paul A. Samuelson, the first American Nobel laureate in economics and the foremost academic economist of the 20th century, died Sunday at his home in Belmont, Mass. He was 94. His death was announced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which Mr. Samuelson helped build into one of the world’s great centers of graduate education in economics.
"In receiving the Nobel Prize in 1970, Mr. Samuelson was credited with transforming his discipline from one that ruminates about economic issues to one that solves problems, answering questions about cause and effect with mathematical rigor and clarity.
"When economists 'sit down with a piece of paper to calculate or analyze something, you would have to say that no one was more important in providing the tools they use and the ideas that they employ than Paul Samuelson,' said Robert M. Solow, a fellow Nobel laureate and colleague of Mr. Samuelson’s at M.I.T."
EDITOR'S NOTE: Fifty years ago this fall, as a college freshman, I took Economics 101, to try to make some sense of that dismal science. I didn't expect much from the course textbook written by Paul Samuelson, but it turned my head completely around and made me an economics major. I'd wager the number of collegians who had the same experience over time could total well over a million.
