Dirk Struik
| Dirk Jan Struik | |
|---|---|
Dirk Jan Struik
|
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| Born |
September 30, 1894 Rotterdam, Netherlands |
| Died | October 21, 2000 (aged 106) Belmont, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Residence | Netherlands, U.S. |
| Nationality | Dutch |
| Fields | Multidimensional geometry, history of mathematics |
| Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Delft University of Technology |
| Alma mater | University of Leiden |
| Doctoral advisor |
W. van der Woude Jan Schouten |
| Doctoral students |
Joseph Dauben Judith Grabiner Eric Reissner Domina Eberle Spencer |
| Known for | A concise history of mathematics; A source book in mathematics 1200–1800 |
| Notable awards | Kenneth O. May Prize (1989) |
Dirk Jan Struik (September 30, 1894 – October 21, 2000) was a Dutch mathematician and Marxian theoretician who spent most of his life in the United States.
Dirk Jan Struik was born in 1894 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, as a teacher's son, Struik attended the Hogere Burgerschool (HBS) in The Hague. It was in this school that he was first introduced to left-wing politics by some of his teachers.
In 1912 Struik entered University of Leiden, where he showed great interest in mathematics and physics, influenced by the eminent professors Paul Ehrenfest and Hendrik Lorentz.
In 1917 he worked as a high school mathematics teacher for a while, after which he worked as a research assistant for J.A. Schouten. It was during this period that he developed his doctoral dissertation, "The Application of Tensor Methods to Riemannian Manifolds."
In 1922 Struik obtained his doctorate in mathematics from University of Leiden. He was appointed to a teaching position at University of Utrecht in 1923. The same year he married Ruth Ramler, a Czech mathematician with a doctorate from the Charles University of Prague.
In 1924, funded by a Rockefeller fellowship, Struik traveled to Rome to collaborate with the Italian mathematician Tullio Levi-Civita. It was in Rome that Struik first developed a keen interest in the history of mathematics. In 1925, thanks to an extension of his fellowship, Struik went to Göttingen to work with Richard Courant compiling Felix Klein's lectures on the history of 19th-century mathematics. He also started researching Renaissance mathematics at this time.
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