I am deeply saddened by the death of Max Kelly. When I saw the subject in Ross posting, and before opening the message, my heart already felt anguish. I am more saddened with his loss that what I have been by the loss of any other member of our category theory community. In fact, I loved Max. I admired his courage, his independence of thought, his lack of hypocrisy, and I loved him simply by the way he was. I am proud that he considered me his friend. For me, our community is not the same without Max. Eduardo J. Dubuc

I have very sad news for the categorical community. Max Kelly died yesterday 26 January 2007. I believe it was a heart attack.

Ross

Max Kelly was not only a power house of categorical understanding, but he also taught us how to combine beauty with rigour and thoroughness in his mathematical writings (see, for example, Richard Wood's recent message!) and thereby rendered an enormous service to the reputation of category theory. In addition to creating a world centre for categories at Sydney, with his willingness to spend long periods of time at numerous places in the world he was (together with Saunders Mac Lane) also the prime ambassador for category theory for many years in many countries, where he would not only give plenty of his time but also never fail to fully engage himself in the local language and culture. Early in my career I had the great privilege to benfit from Max's visits in Germany. Like many others, I will always remain very grateful to him for everything that I learned from him at that time, and for being such a candid and inspiring leader in our community for over forty years. Walter Tholen.

I heard Max once say, without bluster or false modesty, that he was just a competent mathematician. Setting the bar that high, he was an inspiration even to those (like me) who had little hope to clear it. D.Schumacher.

We would like to add also our feelings of deep sadness at Max's death cristina e pierpaolo