Morris Kline

Morris Kline (born May 1, 1908 in Brooklyn , † June 10, 1992 ibid) was an American mathematician who dealt with the history, philosophy and didactics of mathematics.

Kline was the son of an accountant, grew up in Brooklyn and Queens in New York City and studied at New York University (Bachelor 1930, Master 1932), where he received his doctorate in 1936. He was then from 1938 to 1975 assistant and later professor at New York University, apart from a time in World War II as a civilian in the US Army.

Kline is known for a multitude of books in which he popularized mathematics. In didactic questions he emphasized always making connections to applications, in elementary school with mathematical puzzles and applications in sports, in high school with probability and statistics and in college with physics and computers. In his book Why Johnny Can't Add from 1973 he criticized the "New Mathematics" that emerged in the 1960s, whose thinking was influenced by Bourbaki . In Why the Professor Can't Teach he laments the didactic deficit of many professors, who are primarily under pressure to publish research papers. His main work is his extensive and detailed history of mathematics Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times from 1972. He explored cultural trends in mathematics in Mathematics - the loss of certainty from 1980.

He had been married since 1939 and had two daughters.

Fonts

• With Irvin W. Kay: Introduction to Mathematics. Houghton Mifflin, 1937.
• Mathematics in Western Culture. Oxford University Press, 1953.
• Mathematics and the Physical World. TY Crowell Co., 1959.
• Mathematics, A Cultural Approach. Addison-Wesley, 1962.
• with Irvin W. Kay: Electromagnetic Theory and Geometrical Optics. John Wiley and Sons, 1965.
• Calculus, An Intuitive and Physical Approach. John Wiley and Sons, 1967, 1977, Dover Publications 1998 ISBN 0-486-40453-6 .
• Mathematics for Liberal Arts. Addison-Wesley, 1967, republished as Mathematics for the Nonmathematician. Dover Publications, Inc., 1985, ISBN 0-486-24823-2 .
• Editor: Mathematics in the Modern World - Readings from Scientific American. WH Freeman, 1968.
• Mathematical Thought From Ancient to Modern Times. Oxford University Press, 1972.
• Why Johnny Can't Add: The Failure of the New Mathematics. St. Martin's Press, 1973.
• Why the professor can't teach: Mathematics and the dilemma of university education. St. Martin's Press, 1977, ISBN 0-312-87867-2 .
• Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty. Oxford University Press, 1980, ISBN 0-19-502754-X ; OUP Galaxy Books, ISBN 0-19-503085-0 .
• Mathematics: An Introduction to Its Spirit and Use; readings from Scientific American.
• With Abraham Wolf Crown: The Language of Shapes.
• Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge.

literature

• Donald J. Albers, GL Alexanderson Mathematical People - Profiles and Interviews , Birkhäuser 1985

Web links

• New York Times obituary
• Texts by Kline, u. a .: Why the Professor can't teach and Why Johnny Can't Add.