From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/10427 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Steve Vickers Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Barry Mitchell Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2021 12:54:49 +0000 Message-ID: Reply-To: Steve Vickers Mime-Version: 1.0 (1.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="13846"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: To: "Niefield, Susan" Original-X-From: majordomo@rr.mta.ca Wed Mar 24 22:04:07 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from smtp2.mta.ca ([198.164.44.75]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1lPAfe-0003S5-RK for gsmc-categories@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 24 Mar 2021 22:04:06 +0100 Original-Received: from rr.mta.ca ([198.164.44.159]:49628) by smtp2.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.80) (envelope-from ) id 1lPAdf-0006Tl-KX; Wed, 24 Mar 2021 18:02:03 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by rr.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.92.1) (envelope-from ) id 1lPAc2-0001yp-Sl for categories-list@rr.mta.ca; Wed, 24 Mar 2021 18:00:22 -0300 Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.science.mathematics.categories:10427 Archived-At: I never met Barry, but one of his papers, =E2=80=9CRings with several object= s=E2=80=9D, was a great inspiration to me in my PhD study in the late 70s on= non-commutative rings. I was looking at some questions on partitioned matri= ces and knew enough category theory to spot the ringoids there (Abelian enri= ched categories), and even to understand that modules generalized to them. I= t was therefore a great pleasure to discover Barry=E2=80=99s paper. In his treatment there, categories were not so much universes of discourse a= s mathematical structures in their own right, like rings. That seemed an unu= sual point of view in categorical writings, and it is one that has stayed wi= th me. Even now I find it hard to get my head round presheaves or enriched c= ategories without thinking of them as generalized rings and modules. Steve Vickers. > On 23 Mar 2021, at 16:27, Niefield, Susan wrote: >=20 > =EF=BB=BFWith great sadness, I learned today that my dissertation advisor B= arry > Mitchell passed away in late January in a nursing home in Kingston, New > York. As part of the group at Columbia University in the sixties, Barry wa= s > involved in the development of category theory and wrote one of the > earliest books on the subject. He was active through the seventies and > early eighties writing papers on abelian categories and homological > algebra. He was a great supervisor and mentor, and will be remembered for > his insightful and interesting approach to mathematics. >=20 > [Note from moderator: There is an obituary at: >=20 > https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dailyfreeman/obituary.aspx?n=3Dbarry-m-m= itchell&pid=3D197672237&fhid=3D3910 >=20 > ] [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]