Re: Stephen H. Schanuel

[Michael Barr <barr@math.mcgill.ca>]

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/ ]