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/ ]
Dear Bill This is very sad news. You, your family, and Steve’s family have our sincere condolences. Steve Schanuel was a gifted mathematician who could focus fully on a problem under discussion and, as you say, generously offer his deep understanding. We were fortunate to have Steve twice visit Macquarie, where he was greatly appreciated, not only by the category theorists, but by the number theorists, and my family. I have very warm memories of driving back from an outing in the Blue Mountains where he had all of us (Margery and our boys) heartily singing songs in rounds. Another time, I was driving the gang back to Macquarie after the Seminar had been at Sydney University. We were stuck in horrible traffic in pouring rain waiting to cross the Harbour Bridge. I was expressing frustration, to put it mildly. Steve said something like: ``Ross, here we are, among friends, in comfortable chairs, discussing mathematics. Relax!’' Thinking of that still helps reduce my road rage. A meeting with Steve always left you feeling much happier, and certainly more informed. But now I feel a huge loss. Ross On 25 Jul 2014, at 9:27 am, wlawvere <wlawvere@buffalo.edu> wrote:
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/ ]
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/ ]
Dear Bill, have my condolences. I only had the chance to meet Sthephen on a few occasions and yet the brightness of his mind, the originality of his way of approaching the problems, no less than his kindness, were unforgettable. Alberto Peruzzi Il giorno 25/lug/2014, alle ore 01:27, wlawvere <wlawvere@buffalo.edu> ha scritto:
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/ ]
Dear Bill, I want to express my deep appreciation of Steve's brightness and kindness, his wide interests and promptness to help colleagues by suggesting new approaches or connections. I had one occasion of talking with him at leisure, of which I keep a dear memory: traveling together by train to reach the place of some meeting in Italy. Sorry to send my regards with condolences, Marco [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
I had known Steve Schanuel for so long, met him in so many and such varied circumstances, and held so admiring an appreciation as much for his mathematical perceptiveness as for his endearing humanity, musicality, and general good cheer, that my reaction, last week, to Bill's reluctant report of Steve's death left me simply speechless. How could it be that Steve was not simply automatically going to outlive me, by decades? Today I found the latest AMS Notices in my mailbox, with its Memorial Tribute to Friedrich Hirzebruch, who passed away, aged 84, in 2012. This is the same Hirzebruch whose famous little Springer hardback on Topological Methods in Algebraic Geometry was at least as much my constant companion, as a grad student at Columbia in the half-decade centered around 1960, as the equally famous Princeton hardbacks on Homological Algebra and Algebraic Topology that Sammy Eilenberg had his signature on. Of Hirzebruch, too, it seemed, I had expected a life unstopped by death. Finally, after I saw the 1956 snapshot (taken in Mexico at the conference at which yet another topological immortal lost his life) of Chern, Eilenberg, and Hirzebruch, now all passed on, it all came together for me -- it all "clicked": That death we see is not so much the loss of a beloved friend, an admired colleague, a revered teacher, an astute researcher, though it certainly is that, too -- yet it isn't so much a wordly loss as it is that History has rung up a new gain: no longer does Steve belong so exclusively to his peers, colleagues, friends, and family, as to History. All the many who have left us behind on this world -- George Rinehart, Jon Beck, Eva Gray, Sammy, Saunders, Steve, Jim Lambek, Hirzebruch, and all the many others we would think of here -- they have entered into the arms of History, and we may but hope History will treat them as kindly as we would, were it all up to us. Peace, Steve; and peace be with all who love you. -- Fred Linton --- ------ Original Message ------ Received: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 07:36:30 PM EDT From: wlawvere <wlawvere@buffalo.edu> To: <categories@mta.ca> 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/ ]
participants (6)
-
alberto peruzzi -
Fred E.J. Linton -
Marco Grandis -
Michael Barr -
Ross Street -
wlawvere