The Department of Mathematics at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

(also known as Course 18) is one of the leading mathematics departments in the US and the world. In the 2010

US News ''U.S. News & World Report'' (USNWR) is an American media company that publishes news, consumer advice, rankings, and analysis. It was launched in 1948 as the merger of domestic-focused weekly newspaper ''U.S. News'' and international-focused ...

ranking of US graduate programs, the department was ranked number one, while the second place was a 4-way tie among Harvard,

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, and

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

. The current faculty of around 50 members includes

Wolf Prize The Wolf Prize is an international award granted in Israel, that has been presented most years since 1978 to living scientists and artists for ''"achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among people ... irrespective of natio ...

winner

Michael Artin Michael Artin (; born 28 June 1934) is a German-American mathematician and a professor emeritus in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology mathematics department, known for his contributions to algebraic geometry.Shaw Prize The Shaw Prize is an annual award presented by the Shaw Prize Foundation. Established in 2002 in Hong Kong, it honours "individuals who are currently active in their respective fields and who have recently achieved distinguished and signifi ...

winner

George Lusztig George Lusztig (born ''Gheorghe Lusztig''; May 20, 1946) is an American-Romanian mathematician and Abdun Nur Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was a Norbert Wiener Professor in the Department of Mathematics from ...

Gödel Prize The Gödel Prize is an annual prize for outstanding papers in the area of theoretical computer science, given jointly by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) and the Association for Computing Machinery Special Intere ...

winner

Peter Shor Peter Williston Shor (born August 14, 1959) is an American professor of applied mathematics at MIT. He is known for his work on quantum computation, in particular for devising Shor's algorithm, a quantum algorithm for factoring exponentially ...

, and numerical analyst

Gilbert Strang William Gilbert Strang (born November 27, 1934), usually known as simply Gilbert Strang or Gil Strang, is an American mathematician, with contributions to finite element theory, the calculus of variations, wavelet analysis and linear algebra. ...

History

Originally under

John Daniel Runkle John Daniel Runkle (October 11, 1822 – July 8, 1902) was a U.S. educator and mathematician. He served as acting president of MIT from 1868–70 and president between 1870 and 1878. Biography Professor Runkle was born at Root, New York State ...

, mathematics at MIT was regarded as service teaching for engineers. Harry W Tyler succeeded Runkle after his death in 1902, and continued as head until 1930. Tyler had been exposed to modern European mathematics and was influenced by

Felix Klein Christian Felix Klein (; 25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician and mathematics educator, known for his work with group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the associations between geometry and grou ...

and

Max Noether Max Noether (24 September 1844 – 13 December 1921) was a German mathematician who worked on algebraic geometry and the theory of algebraic functions. He has been called "one of the finest mathematicians of the nineteenth century". He was the ...

. Much of the early work was on geometry.

Norbert Wiener Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher ...

, famous for his contribution to the mathematics of signal processing, joined the MIT faculty in 1919. By 1920, the department started publishing the ''

Journal of Mathematics and Physics The journal ''Studies in Applied Mathematics'' is published by Wiley–Blackwell on behalf of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It features scholarly articles on mathematical applications in allied fields, notably computer science, ...

'' (in 1969 renamed as ''

Studies in Applied Mathematics The journal ''Studies in Applied Mathematics'' is published by Wiley–Blackwell on behalf of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It features scholarly articles on mathematical applications in allied fields, notably computer science, ...

''), a sign of its growing confidence; the first PhD was conferred to James E Taylor in 1925. Among illustrious members of the faculty were

Norman Levinson Norman Levinson (August 11, 1912 in Lynn, Massachusetts – October 10, 1975 in Boston) was an American mathematician. Some of his major contributions were in the study of Fourier transforms, complex analysis, non-linear differential equations, ...

and

Gian-Carlo Rota Gian-Carlo Rota (April 27, 1932 – April 18, 1999) was an Italian-American mathematician and philosopher. He spent most of his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked in combinatorics, functional analysis, prob ...

. George B. Thomas wrote the widely used calculus textbook ''Calculus and Analytical Geometry'', known today as ''Thomas' Calculus''. Longtime faculty member

Arthur Mattuck Arthur Paul Mattuck (June 11, 1930 – October 8, 2021) was an emeritus professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He may be best known for his 1998 book, ''Introduction to Analysis'' () and his differential equations ...

received several awards for his teaching of MIT undergraduates.

References

* Joel Segel (editor) (2009) ''Recountings - Conversations with MIT Mathematicians'', AK Peters

External links

MIT Mathematics Department website

{{authority control Mathematics Department Mathematical institutes