Edwin E. Moise

Edwin Evariste Moise (pronounced Moies ) ( born December 22, 1918 in New Orleans, † December 18, 1998 in New York City ) was an American mathematician who worked on geometric topology and mathematics education.

Life and work

Moise graduated from Tulane University mathematics and worked after graduation in 1940 as a cryptographer and Japanese translator for the U.S. Navy. In 1947 he earned his doctorate at the University of Texas in Austin with Robert Lee Moore in topology (An indecomposable continuum Which is homeomorphic to each of its nondegenerate subcontinua ), where he introduced the concept of "pseudo - Arc ". 1947 to 1960 he taught at the University of Michigan, was from 1949 to 1951 at the Institute for Advanced Study ( as assistant to Deane Montgomery and again 1956/57 ). In the late 1950s he worked in a textbook, the Commission should reform the education in schools. From 1960 to 1971 he was professor of mathematics education at Harvard. There he was in the late 1960s, one of the few professors who publicly committed against the Vietnam War. 1971 to 1987 he was a professor at Queens College of the City University of New York. In retirement, he turned to a new area and published several essays of literary criticism to poets of the 19th century.

Moise was the representative of geometric topology from the Moore School as RH Bing and developed this two -to three-dimensional problems. He proved the (essentially unique) Triangulierbarkeit of 3- manifolds. RH Bing subsequently gave further evidence, and Moise a new proof in his textbook of geometric topology. How Bing, he also worked hard on solving the Poincaré conjecture but then gave up. Perhaps that was one reason why he turned to mathematics education.

From 1958 he was involved in efforts to reform the teaching of mathematics and wrote with Floyd L. Downs textbooks for the geometry lessons, which replaced the treatment according to the postulates of Euclid by new metric postulates, which was controversial at the time ( it said, among other things Saunders MacLane from the other hand, Morris Kline ).

Moise was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, at times President of the Mathematical Association of America ( Mathematics Education Association of the USA) and Vice President of the American Mathematical Society. He was also in the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction.

He was married in 1942 and had a daughter and a son.

Writings

  • Elementary Geometry from to Advanced Standpoint. 3rd edition. Addison-Wesley, 1990.
  • With Floyd L. Downs: Geometry. Addison-Wesley 1964, 1991.
  • The Number Systems of Elementary Mathematics. Counting, Measurement, and Coordinates. Addison-Wesley 1966.
  • Calculus. Addison -Wesley 1967. 2nd edition 1972.
  • Geometric Topology in Dimensions 2 and 3, Springer 1977.
  • Introductory Problem Courses in Analysis and Topology. Springer 1982.
Austin (Texas) Harvard University Queens College, City University of New York R. H. Bing Saunders Mac Lane Integrated Authority File
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