He made linear algebra fun

linear-algebramathematicsmiteducationopen-courseware

Abstraction: Gilbert Strang retires after 66 years making linear algebra accessible globally

Key points:

Gilbert Strang spent 66 of his 88 years at MIT (BS 1955, faculty 1962, full professor 1970); taught his last class on May 15, 2023 with 460 students enrolled — a record
His linear algebra course (18.06) eventually was taken by a third of the MIT student body; his OCW lectures have accumulated over 20 million views, uploaded starting in 2001
Published 20 books including six editions of "Introduction to Linear Algebra" (translated into French, German, Greek, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese) and "Linear Algebra and Learning from Data" (2019)
Expanded teachings into deep learning via course 18.065 (Matrix Methods in Data Analysis, Signal Processing, and Machine Learning)
His final lecture drew 6,000 live online viewers and 352,000+ views within one week on MIT OCW YouTube
Received 17 awards including the 1976 Chauvenet Prize, SIAM 2003 Distinguished Service Award, and 2020 Irwin Sizer Award; member of the National Academy of Sciences

Connections: Gilbert Strang · Mit · Mit Opencourseware · Linear Algebra · Mathematics Education