Victor Joseph Katz (born 31 December 1942,

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

) is an American mathematician, historian of mathematics, and teacher known for using the history of mathematics in teaching mathematics.

Biography

Katz received in 1963 from

Princeton University 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 ...

a bachelor's degree and in 1968 from

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , ...

a Ph.D. in mathematics under

Maurice Auslander Maurice Auslander (August 3, 1926 – November 18, 1994) was an American mathematician who worked on commutative algebra, homological algebra and the representation theory of Artin algebras (e.g. finite-dimensional associative algebras over a field ...

with thesis ''The Brauer group of a regular local ring''. He became at Federal City College an assistant professor and then in 1973 an associate professor and, after the merger of Federal City College into the

University of the District of Columbia The University of the District of Columbia (UDC) is a public historically black land-grant university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1851 and is the only public university in the city. UDC is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall ...

in 1977, a full professor there in 1980. He retired there as professor emeritus in 2005. As a mathematician Katz specializes in algebra, but he is mainly known for his work on the history of mathematics and its uses in teaching. He wrote a textbook ''History of Mathematics: An Introduction'' (1993), for which he won in 1995 the

Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize ''This prize should not be confused with the Watson Davis Award'' from the Association for Information Science and Technology. The Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize of the History of Science Society is awarded yearly for a book published, dur ...

. He organized workshops and congresses for the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Founded in 1920, The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is a professional organization for schoolteachers of mathematics in the United States. One of its goals is to improve the standards of mathematics in education. NCTM holds an ...

. The MAA published a collection of teaching materials by Katz as a compact disk with the title ''Historical Modules for the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics''. With Frank Swetz, he was a founding editor of a free online journal on the history of mathematics under the aegis of the MAA; the journal is called ''Convergence: Where Mathematics, History, and Teaching Interact''. In the journal ''Convergence'', Katz and Swetz published a series ''Mathematical Treasures''. For a study of the possibilities for using mathematical history in schools, Katz received a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Personal

He has been married since 1969 to Phyllis Katz (née Friedman), a science educator who developed and directed the U.S. national nonprofit organization '' Hands On Science Outreach, Inc.'' (HOSO). The couple have three children.

Selected publications

As author

*History of Mathematics: An Introduction, New York: Harper Collins, 1993, 3rd edition Pearson 2008 (a shortened edition was published in 2003 by Pearson) *with

Karen Hunger Parshall Karen Hunger Parshall (born 1955, Virginia; ''née'' Karen Virginia Hunger) is an American historian of mathematics. She is the Commonwealth Professor of History and Mathematics at the University of Virginia with a joint appointment in the Corcor ...

Taming the Unknown: A History of Algebra from Antiquity to the Early Twentieth Century
Princeton University Press 2014 *with John B. Fraleigh: A first course in abstract algebra, Addison-Wesley 2003

As editor

The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India and Islam: A Sourcebook
Princeton University Press 2007 *with Bengt Johansson, Frank Swetz, Otto Bekken, John Fauvel
Learn from the Masters
MAA 1994 (contribution by Katz: Historical ideas in teaching linear algebra, Napier's logarithms adapted for today's classroom)
Using History to Teach Mathematics: An International Perspective
MAA 2000, MAA Notes (No. 51) *with Marlow Anderson, Robin Wilson
Sherlock Holmes in Babylon and other Tales of Mathematical History
(collection of reprints from the journal

Mathematics Magazine ''Mathematics Magazine'' is a refereed bimonthly publication of the Mathematical Association of America. Its intended audience is teachers of collegiate mathematics, especially at the junior/senior level, and their students. It is explicitly a j ...

of MAA; contribution by Katz: Ideas of calculus in Islam and India), MAA 2004 *with Marlow Anderson, Robin Wilson
Who gave you the epsilon? and other tales of mathematical history
MAA 2009 (continuation of the collection of essays on the history of mathematics from MAA journal; contribution by Katz: The history of Stokes' theorem) *with Constantinos Tzanakis: Recent Developments on Introducing a Historical Dimension in Mathematics Education, MAA 2011

References

External links

Biography from the MAA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Katz, Victor J 1942 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American historians of mathematics Princeton University alumni Brandeis University alumni University of the District of Columbia faculty