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Date sent:              Thu, 26 Oct 2000 09:42:56 -0500
To:                     [log in to unmask]
From:                   Jerry Becker <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Obituary: Dirk Jan Struik - Mathematician

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 From the Boston Globe, Tuesday, October 24, 2000, Obituaries: p. A25.
Thanks to Lawrence Shirley for bringing this to our attention.
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Obituary

DIRK JAN STRUIK, AT 106; MATHEMATICIAN, THEORIST

By Robert Hardman

Dirk Jan Struik, a professor emeritus of mathematics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died Saturday at his home in
Belmont. He was 106.

Born in Rotterdam in 1894, the son of a high school teacher of
mathematics, Mr. Struik played a role in the scientific and political
revolutions of the 20th century.

He came to the United States in 1926 to take a teaching job at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was joined by his wife, Saly
R. Ramler, a native of Czechoslovakia and herself an accomplished
mathematician. She died in 1993 at age 99.

Beginning in high school in Holland, Mr. Struik was a socialist. An
adherent of Marxist ideas, he welcomed the rise of communism,
beginning with the Russian Revolution in 1917, and witnessed its fall
more than seven decades later. He remained a Marxist, but not a
Communist, until the end of his life.

Asked by a Dutch journalist shortly before his 100th birthday whether
the bloody paroxyms of Communist rule had ever caused him to doubt his
Marxism, he replied: "No, of course not, because Marxism is an outlook
on life. It's the same with Christians; you can be a good Christian
despite the fact that Christians have committed horrible crimes in the
name of Christianity."

His beliefs were not without personal cost in the years of
anti-Communist fervor after World War II, an era Mr. Struik described
as "half reminiscent of Nazi Germany, half of Alice and Wonderland."
He was denounced as a traitor in 1951 by FBI informant Herbert
Philbrick before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Months
later he was charged with breaking an "Anti-Anarchy Law" in
Massachusetts.

While the charges were pending, he was suspended with pay from his
professorship at MIT. According to David Rowe in a 1994 article in
Historica Mathematica, Mr. Struik became a cause celebre, and together
with his wife, "he traveled the country to give talks about a theme
very much on his mind: freedom of speech."

The charges were dropped in 1955, and that fall Mr. Struik returned to
his professorship. He remained on the MIT faculty, where he was
closely associated with Norbert Wiener and the emerging field of
cybernetics, until his retirement in 1960.

Mr. Struik began his scientific career with contributions to the
mathematics associated with Einstein's general theory of
relativity. Later, he turned his attention to the history of
mathematics and the relationship between abstract thinking and the
conditions of life in the surrounding society.

In 1948, he wrote "A Concise History of Mathematics," which remains a
classic in the field, and "Yankee Science in the Making," which traces
the early development of navigation and surveying in America to serve
the needs of trade and industry in New England.

Well into his 90s, he drove regularly to his office at MIT and
continued to do scholarly work, including book reviews and articles
about the history of mathematics. He also extensively corresponded in
English, Dutch, German, and French.

A member of the Appalachian Mountain Club, he enjoyed hiking through
the New England countryside, and every year he would lead a group to
the cabin of Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond, where he would
deliver a short talk about the writer and the land.

Mr. Struik attributed his longevity partly to his study of
mathematics.  "Mathematicians grow very old; it is a healthy
profession," he said in 1993.  "The reason you live long is that you
have pleasant thoughts. Math and physics are very pleasant things to
do."

Mr. Struik leaves three daughters, Ruth of Colorado, Anne Macchi of
Arlington, and Gwendolyn Struik Bray of New Zealand; 10 grandchildren;
and three great-grandchildren.
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GRAPHIC: PHOTO, DIRK JAN STRUIK / 1951 GLOBE FILE PHOTO
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--
Jerry P. Becker
Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL  62901-4610  USA
Phone:   (618) 453-4241  [O]
               (618)  457-8903 [H]
Fax:       (618) 453-4244
E-mail:   [log in to unmask]
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