Never a dull moment: Hassler Whitney, mathematics pioneer

摘要

According to Freeman Dyson, G. H. Hardy, referring at the time to himself, said that ‘Young men should prove theorems, old men should write books’. Hassler Whitney (1907–1989), whose influence on the mathematics of his time and ours is very great, spent his older years not writing books but trying to improve the mathematical education of children in the United States. His approach to early years teaching is roughly the ‘discovery’ or ‘problem-solving’ approach.