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Gilbert Strang's final lecture at MIT: May 15, 11:00am

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Re: Gilbert Strang's final lecture at MIT: May 15, 11:00am

#11
post #9

Here are 34 lectures for his Linear Algebra course he recorded in 1999: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-06-linear-algebra-spring-2010...

Along with Jacques Pepin's "deboning a chicken" .FLV video, these are among the greatest videos on the Internet.

Re: Gilbert Strang's final lecture at MIT: May 15, 11:00am

#13
Multiple generations of scientists and engineers are forever indebted to Strang: He's been teaching for over six decades.

At first only MIT students were lucky to learn from him, but then, as his videos became available online, so did the rest of world.

I've yet to meet anyone working in AI, ML, data science, signal processing, etc. who hasn't watched at least some of Strang's lectures.

I've also met multiple people working in these/related fields for whom Linear Algebra 'clicked' only after watching Strang's lectures.

He deserves the collective applause and giant thank-yous he's getting.

I hope MIT names something after him.

Re: Gilbert Strang's final lecture at MIT: May 15, 11:00am

#14
post #3

Ha, I knew I recognized that name in the domain. Pavel Grinfeld has some great lectures on YouTube, and last I looked, was working on a very useful interactive site for learning mathematics.

This is his channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr22xikWUK2yUW4YxOKXclQ

I love it, especially the videos on Linear Algebra and Differential Equations. He's an extraordinary teacher, much like Strang, imo.

Re: Gilbert Strang's final lecture at MIT: May 15, 11:00am

#15
Linear Algebra was a course in the first semester of freshman year when I was in uni (this wasn't in the US or in an english speaking country). It was famous for being a "filter" course, that made a lot of people quit the degree and switch to a different degree next year.

It had a 94% failure rate, but I got to pass on the first attempt because Gil's free lectures of his LA course made me intuitively understand the stuff we were being taught in that course, which was very dry and IMO poorly explained, at least for freshmen. Don't think I would have dodged the bullet otherwise.

Thanks Gil.

Re: Gilbert Strang's final lecture at MIT: May 15, 11:00am

#16
post #4

I picked up his linear algebra book and watched his lectures last year as part of my journey into machine learning. He made me fall in love with math in a way that I never had before, not even during my physics degree. Truly an inspiring teacher and amazing person.

Agree. I’m seriously thinking of starting a GradCert in October thanks to his teaching.

Re: Gilbert Strang's final lecture at MIT: May 15, 11:00am

#18
There is a great book published in Russian "ЗАДАЧИ И ТЕОРЕМЫ ЛИНЕЙНОЙ АЛГЕБРЫ" (Problems and theorems in linear algebra), by Victor V. Prasolov. English translation was done by American Mathematical Society. Unfortunately, this translation is for the first edition of the book. Latest edition is available for free: http://prasolov.loegria.net/linalg.pdf (hint is you want to print it out, Amazon printing service is great place to print books)

Re: Gilbert Strang's final lecture at MIT: May 15, 11:00am

#19
I had the privilege of taking one of Strang's classes a few years back. He is still incredibly sharp, and has a great sense of wit.

During one lecture, he was half way through solving a problem on the board when he jumped straight to the final answer. He then turned to us, and with a deadpan delivery said:

"We haven’t proved it, but that’s okay, we only live so long."

And then he moved on to the next problem.

I've quoted that line a lot since then.

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