RE: Jim Lambek

["Joyal, André" <joyal.andre@uqam.ca>]

Jim Lambek was the founder of the Montreal school of category theory. 
He made many foundamental contributions to algebra, category theory and categorical logic. 
His paper on multicategories and deductive systems is marking the birth of linear logic.
Let me point out that his notion of muticategory is more general than that of operad introduced later by others. 
I often use his elegant theorem on the initial algebra of an endofunctor. 


I hope I can tell the story right: 
Lambek immigrated from Germany to Canada just before WWII.  
During the war, he was put in a concentration camp by the Canadian government 
because he was German. But he was also a Jew. 
He once told me that he began to learn mathematics in the camp.

-André Joyal

________________________________________
From: Michael Barr [barr@math.mcgill.ca]
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 9:55 PM
To: Categories list
Subject: categories: Jim Lambek

I regret to inform you all that Jim died this afternoon.  His son says it
was congestive heart failure which is as good a way as any to describe
dying of old age.  He was still coming to seminar last fall and celebrated
his 91st birthday in December in pretty good shape, but has been gradually
going downhill since.  I don't believe he came to the office since late
fall.  He had a good run.

Michael


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