Morris Kline

Morris Kline, born in Brooklyn in 1908 and dead there in 1992, was an American professor of mathematics at New York University who wrote widely on the history, philosophy and teaching of the subject and popularised it for general readers. Trained in topology, he took his doctorate at New York University in 1936 and spent two years at the Institute for Advanced Study before returning to New York University. Persuaded by Richard Courant that mathematicians should help people understand the world, he turned to differential equations and applied mathematics. He directed the Division of Electromagnetic Research at the Courant Institute from 1946 to 1966. Among his best known books are Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times of 1972, Why Johnny Can't Add of 1973, a criticism of the New Math, and Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty of 1980. He argued that applications and intuition should come before abstraction in teaching.