Kline, Maurice

Born in New York. After graduating from high school, he entered New York University .

In 1930, he received a bachelor 's degree in physics in New York, in 1936 he defended his doctoral dissertation in mathematics and became a teacher at New York University. In 1939 he got married; Helen's wife bore him two daughters.

In the years 1942-1945, Kline served in the army (radar troops). After the war, he led research on electromagnetism at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. At the same time he returned to teaching; from 1952 to 1975 - professor of mathematics at the university. During this period, he wrote a series of deep and informative books that aroused great interest in the scientific community. The subjects of these books covered the history and philosophy of mathematics , as well as problems of mathematical education. Professor I. M. Jaglom writes in the preface to Klein’s book “ Mathematics. The loss of certainty ”:“ Klein’s book can be considered unique with good reason: such a wide range of issues has not been considered in popular science literature before. ”

In his works, Kline constantly emphasized the need to strengthen the connection between applied and theoretical mathematics, and warned against the self-isolation of “theorists”. Kline writes ^[3] :

The mathematical world should distinguish not between pure and applied mathematics, but between mathematics aimed at solving rational problems and mathematics that indulge only someone’s personal tastes and whims, targeted mathematics and aimless mathematics, meaningful and meaningless mathematics, vibrant and bloodless .

Another feature of his books is a clear and frank description of the crisis phenomena in mathematics and the nature of the disagreements of various mathematical schools ^[4] .

After 1975, Kline left the teaching job, retaining only the title of Honorary Professor of the Courant Institute. Until the end of his life, he served on the editorial board of several journals, including Mathematics Magazine .

• Introduction to Mathematics (with Irvin W. Kay), Houghton Mifflin, 1937
• The Theory of Electromagnetic Waves (ed), Inter-science Publishers, 1951
• Mathematics in Western Culture , Oxford University Press, 1953
• Mathematics and the Physical World , TY Crowell Co., 1959
• Mathematics, A Cultural Approach , Addison-Wesley, 1962
• 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 reprint 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 )
• Mathematics in the Modern World (ed), WH Freeman and Co., 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 pb. reprint ( ISBN 0-19-503085-0 )
• Mathematics: An Introduction to Its Spirit and Use; readings from Scientific American
• Mathematics in the Modern World; readings from Scientific American
• The Language of Shapes (co-authored with Abraham Wolf Crown)
• Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge , Oxford University Press, 1985

Translations into Russian

• Kline M. Mathematics. Loss of certainty . - M .: Mir, 1984. - 446 p.
• Kline M. Mathematics. The search for truth . - M .: Mir, 1988 .-- 295 p.

Both books were reprinted in 2007 by the publishing house RIMIS, see Maurice Kline at Elementy.ru .

• Allen G. Debus. Morris Kline. Who's Who in Science, 1968.

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson . Kline, Maurice (English) - biography in the MacTutor archive. (eng.)
• Obituary