From today's IMU newsletter: | 6. DEATH OF ALBRECHT DOLD ON 26-09-2011. | | Albrecht Dold, known for fundamental contributions to algebraic | topology, was born in Germany in 1928. He held positions in Heidelberg, | Zürich, Princeton and Columbia. He has been Vice-president of IMU in 1995-98. I particularly mourn his passing, as it was Dold's algebraic topology lectures at Columbia around 1961 (+/- 1) that taught me virtually all I know, or would ever learn later, about the Yoneda Lemma. Born August 5, 1928, in Triberg, Germany, and barely a teenager during WW II, Dold would have been 83 at the time of his death. -- Fred [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
Albrecht Dold taught the algebraic topology course that I took in my first year as a graduate student. His beautifully organized presentation of this material was largely responsible for my becoming interested in category theory. He made both the power and the beauty of functors evident. Andreas Blass Begin forwarded message:
From: "Fred E.J. Linton" <fejlinton@usa.net> Date: 6 October, 2011 9:13:26 PM EDT To: "categories" <categories@mta.ca> Subject: categories: Albrecht Dold, R.i.P. Reply-To: "Fred E.J. Linton" <fejlinton@usa.net>
From today's IMU newsletter:
| 6. DEATH OF ALBRECHT DOLD ON 26-09-2011. | | Albrecht Dold, known for fundamental contributions to algebraic | topology, was born in Germany in 1928. He held positions in Heidelberg, | Zürich, Princeton and Columbia. He has been Vice-president of IMU in 1995-98.
I particularly mourn his passing, as it was Dold's algebraic topology lectures at Columbia around 1961 (+/- 1) that taught me virtually all I know, or would ever learn later, about the Yoneda Lemma.
Born August 5, 1928, in Triberg, Germany, and barely a teenager during WW II, Dold would have been 83 at the time of his death.
-- Fred
[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
Two major things I learned from Albrecht Dold. One was the Dod-Kan theorem, on the equivalence between chain complexes and simplicial abelian groups, which was a major input to my doctoral thesis on the finding k-invariants of function spaces; and second, when in the 1960s he was lecturing at Liverpool on half-exact functors, I realised that for publication purposes on this material, I could cut out long and detailed formulae for a homotopy equivalence making a diagram commutative, since its existence followed from naturality! Both of these aspects have continued to influence my work on crossed complexes and nonabelian algebraic topology. Ronnie On 07/10/2011 14:15, Andreas Blass wrote:
Albrecht Dold taught the algebraic topology course that I took in my first year as a graduate student. His beautifully organized presentation of this material was largely responsible for my becoming interested in category theory. He made both the power and the beauty of functors evident.
Andreas Blass
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Fred E.J. Linton"<fejlinton@usa.net> Date: 6 October, 2011 9:13:26 PM EDT To: "categories"<categories@mta.ca> Subject: categories: Albrecht Dold, R.i.P. Reply-To: "Fred E.J. Linton"<fejlinton@usa.net>
From today's IMU newsletter:
| 6. DEATH OF ALBRECHT DOLD ON 26-09-2011. | | Albrecht Dold, known for fundamental contributions to algebraic | topology, was born in Germany in 1928. He held positions in Heidelberg, | Zürich, Princeton and Columbia. He has been Vice-president of IMU in 1995-98.
I particularly mourn his passing, as it was Dold's algebraic topology lectures at Columbia around 1961 (+/- 1) that taught me virtually all I know, or would ever learn later, about the Yoneda Lemma.
Born August 5, 1928, in Triberg, Germany, and barely a teenager during WW II, Dold would have been 83 at the time of his death.
-- Fred
[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
I have meet Dold only a couple of times. He always made a big impression on me. I remember very well his talk at the conference in honour of Samy Eilenberg in 1984. He spoke on a categorical formulation of Lefschetz fixed points theorem using S-duality and trace. It was a very beautiful mixture of category theory and topology. He received a standing ovation for his talk! He is one of my mathematical heros. AJ -------- Message d'origine-------- De: Andreas Blass [mailto:ablass@umich.edu] Date: ven. 07/10/2011 09:15 À: categories@mta.ca Objet : categories: Albrecht Dold, R.i.P. Albrecht Dold taught the algebraic topology course that I took in my first year as a graduate student. His beautifully organized presentation of this material was largely responsible for my becoming interested in category theory. He made both the power and the beauty of functors evident. Andreas Blass Begin forwarded message:
From: "Fred E.J. Linton" <fejlinton@usa.net> Date: 6 October, 2011 9:13:26 PM EDT To: "categories" <categories@mta.ca> Subject: categories: Albrecht Dold, R.i.P. Reply-To: "Fred E.J. Linton" <fejlinton@usa.net>
From today's IMU newsletter:
| 6. DEATH OF ALBRECHT DOLD ON 26-09-2011. | | Albrecht Dold, known for fundamental contributions to algebraic | topology, was born in Germany in 1928. He held positions in Heidelberg, | Zürich, Princeton and Columbia. He has been Vice-president of IMU in 1995-98.
I particularly mourn his passing, as it was Dold's algebraic topology lectures at Columbia around 1961 (+/- 1) that taught me virtually all I know, or would ever learn later, about the Yoneda Lemma.
Born August 5, 1928, in Triberg, Germany, and barely a teenager during WW II, Dold would have been 83 at the time of his death.
-- Fred
[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
One of the first papers Max Kelly told me to read when I started graduate work was Albrecht Dold, "Zur Homotopietheorie der Kettenkomplexe" Math. Ann. 140 1960 278–298. When I returned with a complete translation into English, Max was very critical. He said that was not the way to read a paper in another language. Eventually I met Dold several times. At the invitation of Murray Adelman, Dold visited Macquarie. At the same time, Steve Schanuel was visiting me. This was an exciting time since the two visitors recognized that Dold's work on trace was relevant to Schanuel's work on Euler characteristic. The two charismatic guests were a delight to be around. They generated so much excitement about the mathematics. Albrecht Dold was a genuine European gentleman and I will remember him as looking much younger and energetic than his years. [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
Dold gave two courses in algebraic topology while I was a graduate student at Columbia, 1961-62 I think. They were really beautiful. Apart from Sammy's course on homological algebra, they were the only lectures I learned something from, I still have the notes. Albrecht Dold was a wonderful mathematician, and a very decent person. I think we will all miss him. Myles Tierney -----Original Message----- From: Joyal, André [mailto:joyal.andre@uqam.ca] Sent: Fri 10/7/2011 6:18 PM To: Andreas Blass; categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: RE : categories: Albrecht Dold, R.i.P. I have meet Dold only a couple of times. He always made a big impression on me. I remember very well his talk at the conference in honour of Samy Eilenberg in 1984. He spoke on a categorical formulation of Lefschetz fixed points theorem using S-duality and trace. It was a very beautiful mixture of category theory and topology. He received a standing ovation for his talk! He is one of my mathematical heros. AJ [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
participants (6)
-
Andreas Blass -
Fred E.J. Linton -
Joyal, André -
Ronnie Brown -
Ross Street -
Tierney, Myles