I was very sorry to hear this. I always liked Steve a lot. When I came to Columbia as a newly minted instructor, I was assigned to a large office with one other new PhD and four graduate students, one of whom was Steve. I theoretically specialized (in those days) in homological algebra. Nonetheless I learned more about homological algebra than I had before just from talking to Steve. For one thing, I had never heard of Schanuel's lemma nor how it could be used to prove the invariance of homological dimension. He also showed me how to compute the Catalan numbers (the nth Catalan number is the number of ways of associating a product of n terms). I was one of the first to hear what is now known as Schanuel's conjecture, which is an important area of study in number theory. Rest in Peace, Steve. Michael ----- Original Message ----- From: "wlawvere" <wlawvere@buffalo.edu> To: categories@mta.ca Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2014 7:27:21 PM Subject: categories: Stephen H. Schanuel Stephen H. Schanuel Dear colleagues, It is with deep sadness that I report that my best friend, Steve Schanuel, died today. His intellectual generosity and quick mathematical wit, legendary among colleagues and students alike, will continue to inspire many. Bill Lawvere [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]