Howard Levi (November 9, 1916 in New York City – September 11, 2002 in New York City) was an American mathematician who worked mainly in algebra and mathematical education.[1] Levi was very active during the educational reforms in the United States, having proposed several new courses to replace the traditional ones.
Howard Levi | |
---|---|
Born | November 9, 1916 |
Died | September 11, 2002 New York City | (aged 85)
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Columbia University |
Known for | Levi's reduction process |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Mathematics: differential algebra |
Institutions | Columbia University City University of New York |
Doctoral advisor | Joseph Fels Ritt |
Levi earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Columbia University in 1942 as a student of Joseph Fels Ritt.[2] Soon after obtaining his degree, he became a researcher on the Manhattan Project.[3][4]
At Wesleyan University he led a group that developed a course of geometry for high school students that treated Euclidean geometry as a special case of affine geometry.[5][6] Much of the Wesleyan material was based on his book Foundations of Geometry and Trigonometry.[7]
His book Polynomials, Power Series, and Calculus, written to be a textbook for a first course in calculus,[8] presented an innovative approach, and received favorable reviews by Leonard Gillman, who wrote "[...] this book, with its wealth of imaginative ideas, deserves to be better known."[9][10]
Levi's reduction process is named after him.[11]
In his last years, he tried to find a proof of the four color theorem that did not rely on computers.[3]