Logic List Mailing Archive
Saunders Mac Lane (1909-2005)
Saunders Mac Lane
Born: 4 Aug 1909 in Taftville, Connecticut, USA
Died: 14 April 2005 in San Francisco, California, USA
The MAA reports that Saunders MacLane died April 14, 2005 at the age of
95. MacLane earned his doctorate under Weyl and Bernays at Goettingen and
spent most of a long and distinguished career at the University of
Chicago.
Mac Lane's work covered a wide range of mathematics. He worked on and off
throughout his career on mathematical logic, no surprise for a student of
Bernays, and he did some early work on planar graphs. He studied
valuations and their extensions to polynomial rings. In the 1940s he
worked on cohomology and introduced the basic notions of category theory.
Kelly, in [4], writes:-
No man could so stimulate others unless, alongside an incisive
intellect, he was possessed of enthusiasm and warmth, a deep interest in
his fellow man, and a sympathy the more real for being unsentimental.
Those who proudly call themselves his friends know these things: others
will infer them in reading [his works].