Former head of MIT math department dies

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Ken Hoffman, a former head of the math department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of a textbook on linear algebra, has died at 77.

Hoffman, who worked for the National Research Council in Washington in the late 1980s, died Sept. 29 of a pulmonary embolism at a hospital in Cambridge, Md., the Boston Globe reported.

After receiving a doctoral degree in 1956 from the University of California at Los Angeles, Hoffman joined the MIT faculty. He became a full professor in 1964 and headed the department from 1971 to 1979.

"Everything he touched turned out to be very positive," said Isadore Singer, a friend who worked with Hoffman on mathematics research.

Singer described Hoffman's textbook as "the textbook on the subject."

A memorial service is scheduled Oct. 25 at the American Mathematical Association Carriage House in Washington.