From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/10738 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eugenia Cheng Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Pieter Hofstra Date: Thu, 5 May 2022 11:10:56 -0500 Message-ID: Reply-To: Eugenia Cheng Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="35330"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" To: Philip Scott , categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: majordomo@rr.mta.ca Wed May 11 17:09:04 2022 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from smtp2.mta.ca ([198.164.44.40]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1nonxW-0008uc-Td for gsmc-categories@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 11 May 2022 17:09:03 +0200 Original-Received: from rr.mta.ca ([198.164.44.159]:59404) by smtp2.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.80) (envelope-from ) id 1nonuW-0004AR-Rr; Wed, 11 May 2022 12:05:56 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by rr.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.92.1) (envelope-from ) id 1nonuC-0003RW-1e for categories-list@rr.mta.ca; Wed, 11 May 2022 12:05:36 -0300 Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.science.mathematics.categories:10738 Archived-At: I am devastated by the death of my dear friend and colleague Pieter Hofstra. Pieter was one of my closest friends in the world. It is one of the extraordinary things about being a mathematician, that one becomes close friends with people even without ever having lived in the same place as them. I met Pieter at the PSSL in Braunschweig in April 2000 when we were both PhD students. It's particularly crucial to make friends at conferences when you're a PhD student and new to everything, because it's all so daunting. I rely heavily on surrounding myself with friends. Pieter was one of the friends whom I relied on at conferences and also in all of life. We became friends immediately, connecting over category theory, Schubert, espresso, single malt whisky. Pieter was the best friend I can imagine. He was always there for me through the amazing ups and terrible downs of these last 22 years. He had the sharpest perception, wriest wit, and the most exquisite command of the English language despite it not being his first language. He helped me understand category theory that I felt stupid for not understanding, but he never made me feel stupid. He gave beautiful talks, and taught me the amazing technique of planning board talks actually board by board to ensure a good layout of notes on the boards. As Robin mentioned, Pieter was an accomplished poker player and gave an extremely popular maths course on the maths of poker. At the end of conferences we had a tradition of going to a casino and spending the evening at a poker table. We would both put money in, and then I'd watch as he calmly doubled or tripled it. I know nothing about poker, but I enjoyed watching the other players trying, and failing, to size him up. At the Kananaskis workshop in 2006 we were halfway through a bottle of Islay whisky when he offered me some more and said "More whisky, Dear Colleague?" and for some reason we took to addressing each other as Dear Colleague for ever more. It was a ridiculous moniker for someone who was so much more than a colleague, but Pieter was the master of understatement. I miss my Dear Colleague terribly. I am devastated, and my life will never be the same. My heart goes out to all those mourning his loss. Eugenia On Tue, May 3, 2022 at 2:47 PM Philip Scott wrote: > It is with great sadness that we announce that our dear friend and > colleague Pieter Hofstra (1975-2022) passed away unexpectedly on May 1. > Pieter obtained his PhD from Utrecht University, under Jaap van Oosten, > studying realizability toposes. His research interests included general > topos theory, realizability, inverse semigroups and groupoids, abstract > computability, and homotopy type theory. Among his recent works, with J. > Funk he introduced the notion of isotropy groups of toposes, which he was > actively developing with students and colleagues. > > While Pieter was a brilliant researcher, a kind teacher and a caring > supervisor, we will most remember him as a friend. When we have any > details for a memorial service, we will pass them along. > > Richard Blute, Simon Henry, Philip Scott (University of Ottawa) > > [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]