Gilbert Stranf

Meet Gilbert Strang. The 89-year-old MIT professor who made Linear Algebra the most-watched math course on the internet. No fancy CGI. Just a chalkboard, a green sweater, and pure genius.

Strang has spent a collective 66 years at MIT as a student, instructor, and faculty member. He earned his PhD from UCLA and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. Over his long tenure, he has authored twelve influential books, including the classic Introduction to Linear Algebra .

In 1962, Strang joined the MIT faculty, eventually becoming the first holder of the chair in 2011. He officially retired in May 2023 after 66 years at the institute as a student and educator, delivering a final lecture that received a standing ovation from students and colleagues alike. Contributions to Mathematics gilbert stranf

In addition to his robust career in academia, Strang has written 20 books — including six editions of the famed Introduction to Li... Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics QnAs with Gilbert Strang - PMC - NIH A former president of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), author of several textbooks (2–9), and 2009 elect... PubMed Central (PMC) (.gov) Faculty Profile: Gilbert Strang - MIT OpenCourseWare My life is in teaching. To have a chance to do that with a world audience is just wonderful. MIT mathematics Professor Gilbert Str... Universidad Politécnica Salesiana - UPS

In 2005, MIT launched MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), a program to put course materials online for free. While many professors viewed the internet with skepticism, Strang embraced it. Meet Gilbert Strang

If calculus is the study of change, linear algebra is the study of structure. Strang taught us that structure is just as important.

For over six decades, Professor Strang has been a fixture at MIT, but his reach extends far beyond the hallowed halls of Cambridge. He is the author of the textbook that defined how linear algebra is taught, and the face of one of the most successful OpenCourseWare programs in history. Just a chalkboard, a green sweater, and pure genius

Gilbert Strang reminds us that the best teachers aren't necessarily the ones with the most prestigious awards (though he has plenty of those). The best teachers are the ones who care enough to make the complex simple.

At 89 years old, Prof. Strang is still teaching. For over 60 years at MIT, he has demystified the “boring” parts of math and turned Linear Algebra into the most beautiful subject on earth.

Strang’s academic journey began at MIT, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in 1955. He then attended the University of Oxford as a , receiving his B.A. and M.A. from Balliol College in 1957. He completed his Ph.D. at UCLA in 1959 under the supervision of Peter Henrici, with a dissertation focused on difference methods for boundary value problems.

Strang is perhaps most famous globally for his online presence. His MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) lectures for course 18.06 (Linear Algebra) have been viewed over ten million times, making him one of the most recognized math educators in the world.