Mark Steiner – an American-born Israeli professor of philosophy. He taught philosophy of mathematics and physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – died on April 6, 2020 due to COVID-19.
Mark Steiner was born in the Bronx, New York. He graduated from Columbia University , and studied at Oxford as a Fulbright Fellow and earned his Ph.D. at Princeton University in 1972. Steiner taught at Columbia from 1970 – 77.
Steiner is best known for his book The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem, in which he attempted to explain the historical utility of mathematics in physics. The book may be considered an extended meditation on the issues raised by Eugene Wigner’s article The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Steiner is also the author of the book Mathematical Knowledge.
Steiner died on April 6, 2020, in Shaare Zedek Medical Center, after contracting the COVID-19 virus during the COVID-19 pandemic.