Everything about John L Kelley totally explained
John Leroy Kelley (
December 6 1916,
Kansas –
November 26 1999,
Oakland, California) was an American mathematician at
University of California, Berkeley who worked in general
topology and
functional analysis.
Kelley's 1955 text,
General Topology, which eventually appeared in three editions and several translations, is a classic and widely cited graduate level introduction to
topology. An appendix sets out a new approach to
axiomatic set theory, now called
Morse–Kelley set theory, that builds on
Von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory.
After earning AB and MA degrees from the
University of California, Los Angeles, he went to the
University of Virginia, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1940.
Gordon Whyburn, a student of
Robert Lee Moore, supervised his thesis, titled
A study of hyperspaces. He taught at the
University of Notre Dame until the outbreak of
World War II. From 1942 to 1945, he did mathematics for the war effort at the
Aberdeen Proving Grounds, where his work unit included his future Berkeley colleagues
Anthony Morse and
Charles Morrey. After teaching at the
University of Chicago, 1946-47, Kelley spent the rest of his career at Berkeley, from which he retired in 1985. He chaired the Mathematics Department at Berkeley 1957-60 and 1975-80. He held visiting appointments at
Cambridge University and the
Indian Institute of Technology in
Kanpur, India.
In 1950, Kelley was one of 29 tenured Berkeley faculty (3 of whom were members of the Mathematics Department) dismissed for refusing to sign a
McCarthy-era loyalty oath mandated by the UC Board of Regents. He then taught at
Tulane University and the
University of Kansas. He returned to Berkeley in 1953, after the
California Supreme Court declared the oath unconstitutional and directed Berkeley to rehire the dismissed academics. He was later an outspoken opponent of the
Vietnam War.
Kelley's interest in teaching extended well beyond the higher reaches of mathematics. In 1960, he took a leave of absence to serve as the National Teacher on
NBC's
Continental Classroom television program. He was an active member of the
School Mathematics Study Group (SMSG) which played an important role in designing and promulgating the "
new math" of that era. In 1964, he led his department to introduce a new major called Mathematics for Teachers, and later taught one of its core courses. These endeavors culminated in the text Kelley and Richert (1970). In 1977-78, he was a member of the U.S. Commission on Mathematical Instruction.
Books by Kelley
- 1976 (1955). General topology. ISBN 0-387-90125-6
- 1963 (with Isaac Namioka et al.). Linear Topoligical Spaces. Van Nostrand.
- 1970 (with Donald Richert). Elementary Mathematics for Teachers.
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