Samuel Eilenberg
Samuel Eilenberg (born September 30, 1913 in Warsaw , Weichselland , † January 30, 1998 in New York , USA ) was a Polish mathematician . Together with Saunders Mac Lane he is considered to be the founder of category theory .
life and work
Samuel Eilenberg came from the Polish mathematical school, which had its focus on basic mathematical research, topology , functional analysis and measure theory , and received his doctorate in 1936 under Karol Borsuk in Warsaw. In 1939, when the Second World War broke out, he fled Europe to the USA, where Solomon Lefschetz and Oswald Veblen found him a job at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in Princeton , where Raymond Wilder set up a “Topology” working group. In 1947 he went to Columbia University in New York, where he stayed until his retirement, was twice dean of the department and in 1982 was "University Professor" (the highest position there).
Eilenberg's main area of work was topology. Together with Norman Steenrod he worked on an axiomatic foundation of homology theory ( Foundations of Algebraic Topology , Princeton 1952, known are the Eilenberg-Steenrod axioms for characterizing a homology ). His work with Saunders MacLane laid the foundation for homological algebra. He was also a member of the French Bourbaki group. With Henri Cartan he published a standard work on homological algebra ( Homological Algebra , Princeton 1956). The Eilenberg-Zilber theorem deals with the homology of product spaces. In 1958 he gave a plenary lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Edinburgh ("Applications of homological algebra in topology"). He also wrote a book on automata theory.
Eilenberg and Steenrod also planned a follow-up volume to their textbook, which never appeared. Shortly before his death, Eilenberg worked with Eldon Dyer on a multi-volume topology textbook.
Eilenberg was also a noted collector of Southeast Asian art. In 1987 he bequeathed his collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art .
His PhD students include Myles Tierney , William Lawvere , David Buchsbaum , Daniel Kan, and Alex Heller .
Honors
- In 1958 he gave a plenary lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Edinburgh (Applications of Homological Algebra in Topology).
- 1959: Member of the US National Academy of Sciences
- 1970: Invited Speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Nice (Algebraic aspects of automata theory)
- 1974: Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1986: Wolf Prize
- 1987: Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the American Mathematical Society
- 2013: Samuel Eilenberg Centenary Conference
Fonts
- Singular homology theory. In: Annals of Mathematics . Series 2, Vol. 45, No. 3, 1944, pp. 407-447, doi : 10.2307 / 1969185 , (definition of singular homology ).
- with Saunders MacLane : Relations between homology and homotopy groups of spaces. In: Annals of Mathematics. Series 2, Volume 46, No. 3, 1945, pp. 480-509, doi : 10.2307 / 1969165 , (definition of group homology ).
- with Claude Chevalley : Cohomology theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras. In: Transactions of the American Mathematical Society . Volume 63, No. 1, 1948, pp. 85-124, doi : 10.2307 / 1990637 .
- with Norman Steenrod : Foundations of algebraic topology (= Princeton Mathematical Series. 15, ISSN 0079-5194 ). Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1952.
- with Henri Cartan : Homological Algebra (= Princeton Mathematical Series. 19). Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1956.
- Automata, languages, and machines (= Pure and Applied Mathematics. 59, A-B). Volume A, B. Academic Press, New York NY et al. 1974, 1976, ISBN 0-12-234001-9 (Vol. A), ISBN 0-12-234002-7 (Vol. B).
- with Saunders MacLane: Collected works . Academic Press, Orlando FL et al. 1986, ISBN 0-12-234020-5 .
literature
- Hyman Bass, Henri Cartan, Peter Freyd, Alex Heller, Saunders Mac Lane: Samuel Eilenberg (1913–1998) . In: Notices of the American Mathematical Society . tape 45 , no. 10 November 1998, pp. 1344-1352 ( online [PDF]).
Web links
- Literature by and about Samuel Eilenberg in the catalog of the German National Library
- John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson : Samuel Eilenberg. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
- Works by Eilenberg and about Eilenberg groups
swell
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Eilenberg, Samuel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish mathematician, is considered the founder of category theory |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 30, 1913 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Warsaw , Weichselland |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 30, 1998 |
| Place of death | New York City , USA |