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Original title: Tears! 88-year-old MIT mathematics master last lesson, taught for 61 years, wrote Tsinghua textbook

Gilbert Strang, professor of linear algebra, finished his last class before retirement yesterday, and in an instant, countless students in front of the screen burst into tears.

An era ended yesterday when MIT linear algebra guru Professor Gilbert Strang gave his final lecture.

Gilbert Strang previously spent 61 years as a faculty member at MIT.

Gilbert Strang, 88, is still recording online classes.

When it comes to this name, mathematics students are familiar with it. His public lectures have been widely circulated on MIT's website, YouTube and even B-site.

Earlier, netizens rushed to tell each other, predicting the news of the last lesson.

Many students are waiting in front of the computer for this class.

Netizens have said that their eyes really contain tears.

Before the last lesson began, Professor Strang walked up to the podium for the last time and looked at the students in the classroom with a myriad of thoughts.

The professor played a video of Alan Edelman, and Edelman said solemnly--

Today is a special moment in MIT history, for young students who are listening to linear algebra for the first time, and for those who have been exposed to Professor Gilbert Strang's knowledge for more than half a century.

Gil, you always imbued us with knowledge in a respectful, humble way. Whether it was a student with good grades or a student with more difficulties, Gil was always generous to lend a hand.

What makes Gil's class so magical? We may not be able to put it into words, but no one will not feel this charm, whether it is his words, tone of voice, or pace.

In his textbooks, he always explained the most profound principles with the simplest examples. Gil weaves the most beautiful mathematical spirit into these books.

Finally, Alan Edelman extended an invitation to Gil to continue as a guest lecturer after he retired. To which Gil responded with a smile: This is really the last class.

Gil said he was going to talk about some lineages next, and because his family was sitting in the audience, he finally found a chance to teach them.

Gil recalls fondly that he spent 61 years teaching at MIT, two part-time, three years as a student (when the math department was only eight people), and three-quarters of his life here. He sighed. What a harmonious score.

This class starts with three equations, N equations for N unknowns, one of the most classic problems in linear algebra.

This idea originated thousands of years ago in China.

Changing the coefficient of the first order term of x to zero gives the value of z. Then go back to the previous equation and gradually get the values of y and x.

This process is called elimination.

Writing the above three equations into a matrix reduces them to the following form.

Next, a matrix of three equations and four unknowns.

Then, perform some transformations on the matrix.

Let x3=1, x4=0

According to the following equations, x1=-3, x2 =-4.

And so on, solving for the other groups x1, x2, x3, x4.

This is a matrix of 3 rows and 4 columns, with rank 2 for both rows and columns.

Even outside MIT's campus, students are benefiting from Professor Gil's curriculum, said Michelle Gomez, dean of the department, who made the closing remarks.

His classes on OCW bring in more than 5000 visitors a day and have been viewed by more than 14 million people.

Finally, the classroom erupted into applause, and Professor Gil's eyes filled with tears.

Professor Gilbert Strang was born in November 1934 in Chicago, USA. He is a famous mathematician in America.

Strang's parents William and Mary Catherine Strang immigrated from Scotland to the United States together. He and his sister Vivian grew up in Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, and high school in Principia, St. Louis.

He completed his undergraduate degree at MIT in 1955 at the age of 21.

Two years later, Strang received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Balliol College, Oxford, as well as a Rhodes Scholarship.

In 1959, Gilbert Strang received his Ph.D. from UCLA and became a National Science Foundation Fellow under Peter K. Henrici。

The title of his dissertation was "Difference Methods for Mixed Boundary Value Problems."

After receiving his doctorate in 1962, Strang and his wife, Jillian Shannon, have taught at MIT for 61 years.

While at Oxford, Strang met Shannon and they married in 1958.

Together they had three sons David, John and Robert, and described their small family as very close. After teaching at MIT for so many years, they lived almost all the time in Wellesley.

He has made contributions to finite element theory, variational methods, wavelet analysis and linear algebra. But he is best known for his contributions to mathematics education.

Since teaching in 1962, Strang's teaching content has focused on "linear algebra" and has become a compulsory course for many professional students. Although he is old, he still insists on teaching.

His video lectures on linear algebra are popular on YouTube and MIT OpenCourseWare.

On MIT's OCW website,"18.06 Linear Algebra" is one of the most popular courses, with 35 course videos and 36 teaching assistant videos.

According to the OWC, the course has received more than 10 million visits since it first opened in 2002.

Even on the domestic "learning platform" B station, this class released by an UP master has more than 1 million views.

In addition, in 2017, Professor Strang opened a new undergraduate course at MIT,"Matrix Methods in Data Analysis, Signal Processing, and Machine Learning," which was published on OCW in 2019.

This course is an advanced course in linear algebra in machine learning and other fields, focusing on how to use linear generation methods to understand and create ML algorithms, especially for deep learning and neural networks. Many students responded positively.

The course is based on Gilbert Strang's new book, Linear Algebra and Learning from Data, which also includes two basic topics and two complementary topics-linear algebra, deep learning, optimization, and probability theory and statistics.

One of the secrets of Strang's OCW success is his teaching style.

During class, Strang often gives quick smiles and looks of encouragement. In addition, he often uses polite words such as "please" and "thank you" in class.

To determine if a student can keep up, he says,"Am I OK?" Or a more up-to-date description of what you're talking about, and an overview.

Strang seeks to interact with the classroom through questions and to allow students to see more intuitive content, such as drawings, before giving formal proof, which is very infectious.

The old man once said,"My intention in doing this is to encourage other teachers to do the same, and perhaps show them a new way to teach linear algebra."

In 1999, with the support of the Lord Foundation of Massachusetts, he recorded his first series of lectures.

Most importantly, after teaching at MIT all his life, he was still able to project energy and enthusiasm into his classes.

In the MIT OCW official website teacher profile, there is such a sentence:

My life is teaching, and it's great to have the opportunity to teach with an audience all over the world.

On May 15, 2023, Strang retired honorably after giving his last lecture on linear algebra and data learning at MIT.

Books continue, line generation into Tsinghua textbooks in teaching and educating people at the same time, the old man also kept writing.

Professor Gilbert Strang has published 13 books in his lifetime, and the most famous one is Introduction to Linear Algebra.

The book has been updated to version 6.

In 2019, Tsinghua University replaced the textbook of Linear Algebra with an English version, which was written by Gilbert Strang, which caused a lot of controversy at that time.

This book contains familiar determinants, matrices, linear equations and vectors, etc., and each chapter is also equipped with exercises.

In addition to this book, which many children have heard of, Strang has been in business ever since, constantly providing new insights into key math subjects.

In 2014, for example, he published a new book, Differential Equations and Linear Algebra.

In 2016, MathWorks, a well-known MATLAB developer, launched a series of 55 lectures on ordinary differential equations based on this textbook.

In addition, Strang teaches graduate courses using his book Computational Science and Engineering.

Professor Gilbert Strang received many honors during his lifetime. He is a Sloan Fellow, Fairchild Scholar, AAAS Fellow, Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, and American NAS Fellow.

He is also an honorary professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Netizens paid tribute to Professor Gilbert Strang for sharing his passion for mathematics knowledge with the world for 61 years.

The brilliant seeds of knowledge he sowed not only influenced many students, but also inspired teachers.

And his last lesson was, for many, an extraordinary one. In the comment area under this class, netizens have left messages.

A legend has retired after 61 years teaching at MIT. Salute!

Your lectures provided me with the motivation to pursue mathematics and gave me a lifelong passion for mathematics. Thank you very much, Professor Strang.

References:

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=lUUte2o2Sn8

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: Xinzhiyuan (ID: AI_era)

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