Max Kelly

Max Kelly

[Peter May]

Max visited Saunders Mac Lane in Chicago in 1970-71, and conversations
with him then were both great fun and greatly influenced my work. To quote
from the preface to ``The geometry of iterated loop spaces'', in which I
introduced operads, ``The notion of `operad' defined in Section 1 arose
simultaneously in Max Kelly's categorical work on coherence, and
conversations with him led to the present definition''.  It is a pity
that, due to ill-advised suggestions by a referee a little later, his
January, 1972, preprint ``On the operads of J.P. May'' was not published
until 2006! It contains many often rediscovered insights. See
http://www.tac.mta.ca/tac/reprints/articles/13/tr13abs.html.

We also had many conversations about his upcoming role as chair in Sydney.
In those days, before e-mail and even xerox, the problem of relative
isolation down under was much on Max's mind, and he thought that this was
one good reason for following his heart and working to make Sydney a home
for the development of the then underappreciated area of category theory
that he so much loved.  We are all in his debt for the marvelous way that
he succeeded.

Peter May