Dirk Jan Struik

Dirk Struik January (born 30 September 1894 in Rotterdam, † 21 October 2000 in Belmont, Massachusetts ) was a Dutch mathematician who was known as a historian of mathematics.

Life and work

Struik was the son of a teacher and went to school in The Hague. In 1919 he joined the Communist Party and remained until his death party member. From 1912 he studied at the University of Leiden, including Paul Ehrenfest and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. He then worked for a time as a teacher in Alkmaar before with Jan Schouten ( whose assistant he was) and Willem van der Woude in 1922 received his doctorate (Broad multi-dimensional differential geometry in direct representation). In 1923 he became a lecturer in Utrecht. In the same year he married the Czech mathematician Ruth PeterRamler. In 1924, he was a Rockefeller Fellowship in Rome by Tullio Levi -Civita and 1925 at the University of Göttingen with Richard Courant, with which he in the lectures of Felix Klein (who had just passed away at his arrival ) on the history of mathematics 19 century published. From 1926 he was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT ) ( at the same time he was offered a professorship in Moscow), where he partially differential geometry (including with Norbert Wiener), partly the history of mathematics devoted himself. In 1940 he became a professor at MIT. During the McCarthy era, he denied the statements had to pay $ 1,000 and was five years at MIT suspended until 1955 (albeit on full pay ). In 1960 he retired from MIT, there could not but continue to teach. But Struik taught, for example, at Harvard University (from 1972 as Honorary Research Associate), Mexico, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and Utrecht. He was considered the doyen of mathematics historian, still held as over 100 years of lectures and was 106 years old.

In addition to textbooks on differential geometry, he also wrote two standard works on the history of mathematics. He is co-founder of the Marxist magazine about science history "Journal of Science and Society ." Struik also edited the works of Simon Stevin and dealt historically with Karl Marx, from which he re- edited some works.

In 1989 he received the first Kenneth O. May Prize for the History of Mathematics of the International Commission on the History of Mathematics.

He had three daughters, of whom a mathematics professor was.

Writings

  • A Concise History of Mathematics, 1948, many editions, Dover, 1987, ISBN 0486602559th
  • Outline of the history of mathematics. 7th edition, Berlin, VEB German Academic Publishers 1980.
  • A Source Book of Mathematics 1200 - 1800th Princeton University Press, 1986 ( and Harvard University Press, 1969).
  • Lectures on Classical Differential Geometry, 1950, 2nd edition, Addison -Wesley 1961, Dover, 1988, ISBN 0486656098th
  • Jan Schouten: Introduction to the new methods of differential geometry. 2 volumes, Noordhoff, Groningen 1935-38.
  • Broad multi-dimensional differential geometry in direct representation. Springer -Verlag, 1922.
  • The Birth of the Communist Manifesto. In 1971.
  • Yankee Science in the Making - Science and Engineering in New England from Colonial Times to the Civil War, in 1948, Dover 1992, ISBN 0,486,269,272th
  • Theory of linear connections. Springer -Verlag, 1934.
  • Analytic and Projective Geometry. Addison -Wesley, 1953.
  • Interview, Mathematical Intelligencer Bd.11, 1989, No.1.
October 21 Belmont (Massachusetts) Hendrik Lorentz Rockefeller Foundation David E. Rowe Integrated Authority File
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