on the NYUT Sammy obit

[categories <cat-dist@mta.ca>]

Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:59:03 -0500 (EST)
From: F W Lawvere <wlawvere@acsu.buffalo.edu>

We noted that the Feb 3 New York Times description of Sammy Eilenberg's
life contained notable ommissions, and in particular seriously
under-represents the glorious achievements of the Columbia University Math
Dept.  Therefore we are sending the following letter to the Times, hoping
that they'll print it.


Editor:
         We were moved by your obituary of Professor Samuel
Eilenberg, the eminent Columbia University mathematician.
Our lives, like those of his many other students and colleagues
around the world, were profoundly influenced by his 'insistence
on getting to the bottom of things'.
        It is widely known in the mathematical community
that Professor Eilenberg's most influential long-term
collaboration was with the senior US mathematician
Saunders Mac Lane, of the University of Chicago.  Their joint
discovery in 1945 of the theory of transformations between
mathematical categories provided the tools without which Sammy's
important collaborations with Steenrod and Cartan, which you mentioned,
would not have been possible.
        That joint work laid also the basis for Sammy's pioneering
work in theoretical computer science and for a great many
continuing developments in geometry, algebra, and the
foundations of mathematics.  In particular, the Eilenberg-Mac Lane
theory of categories was indispensable to the 1960 development,
by the French mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, of
the powerful form of algebraic geometry which was an ingredient
in several recent advances in number theory, including Wiles'
work on the Fermat theorem.

Sincerely,
Professor F. W. Lawvere, SUNY Buffalo
Professor P.J. Freyd, University of Pennsylvania