Topology Atlas Document # topc-77 | Production Editor: Thomas M. Zachariah

TOPOLOGICAL COMMENTARY

Volume 4, #2, December 28, 1999

Edited by Melvin Henriksen

commentary@mail.mathatlas.yorku.ca

I continue to invite commentary on any article in any issue of TopCom or on any topic of general interest to topologists, including news about topologists or topological activity.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Editorial by Melvin Henriksen
  2. Categories and John Isbell
  3. So Far, So Good: My Life to Now by Edwin Hewitt
  4. Memorials for Edwin Hewitt
  5. Memorials For Rae Michael Shortt
  6. A Book Review by Shchepin
  7. A Book Review by Corinne Cerf
  8. Photo Gallery
  9. John L. Kelley
  10. 1999 Is a Year of Great Loss to Topology
  11. A New Format for TopCom

1. Editorial

by Melvin Henriksen

"With increasing frequency, paper journals are shifting production costs of publication to authors..."
"...Watching this slow suicide will be painful, but unless organizations like the AMS, SIAM, and the MAA stop ignoring these problems while being penny wise and dollar foolish, it is inevitable. "

2. Categories and John Isbell

I recently became aware of the Categories Network which has been on the web for some time and which is of interest to topologists and other mathematicians. It also has news about the medical problems of John Isbell from their inception in mid-May until the end of October. See the following page for more details.

3. Memorials for Edwin Hewitt (1920-1999)

Edwin Hewitt made substantial contributions to General Topology and Functional Analysis and was a first rate teacher of graduate and undergraduate students. I read (or more accurately devoured) his paper "Rings of Real-valued Continuous Functions I" published in the Transactions of the AMS in 1948. and it set the basic course of my research career. It was marred by errors without being damaged seriously by them. He became the father of this subject (M.H. Stone being the grandfather). The gems in this subject were put in the right setting by the Gillman and Jerison text, which remains in print after nearly four decades.

I attended a memorial gathering for Edwin Hewitt on the campus of the University of Washington on November 6, 1999. A large group of colleagues, former students, children, ex-wives, and musicians (Hewitt took up the French Horn at age 40) talked about him as an extremely talented human being who was alternately charming and exasperating.

Below, there are memorials by Debra Tepper Haimo who knew him when she was an undergraduate at Harvard, and by his former student and collaborator Ken Ross concerned mainly with Hewitt's contributions to analysis.

Another memorial on Hewitt's contributions to General Topology by W. Wistar Comfort has been delayed for reasons beyond his control and will appear sometime next year.

4. So Far, So Good: My Life to Now

by Edwin Hewitt (1990)

This is an autobiographical article by Edwin Hewitt that was prepared originally as a talk at a conference in his honor held in 1988. (I am indebted to Chandler Davis, the managing editor of the Mathematical Intelligencer, and to its publisher Springer Verlag for permission to reprint this article this one time.) He suffered a debilitating stroke in 1989. This slowed down his mathematical activity without stopping it.

5. Memorials For Rae Michael Shortt

He was born December 9, 1957 in Hartford, Connecticut and ended his life July 11, 1999 at Wesleyan University after suffering for some time from a debilitating disease. His career can be described as meteoric and we may all wonder how much more he would have accomplished had he lived the number of years normally allotted to someone of his age.

The first of these memorials was written by his friend and senior colleague at Wesleyan, Wistar Comfort, and was read at the memorial service held in the Wesleyan chapel in Rae's honor at Wesleyan on September 21, 1999.

The second memorial is written by his long time friend and co-author Professor K.P.S Bhaskara Rao of the Indian Statistical Institute in Bangalore, India who visited and taught at Wesleyan University to work with Rae Shortt.

6. A Book Review: Continuous Selections of Multivalued Mappings

by E. V. Shchepin

The book being reviewed presents the theory of continuous selections in a single volume.

7. A Book Review: Knot Theory

by Corinne Cerf

This book is a 1983 translation of the 1932 celebrated book by Kurt Reidemeister.

8. Photo Gallery

Thanks to Murat Tuncali, and Marjie Smith (photographer) for these pictures. Names are missing from some of these photographs. If you recognize these people, please send these names to Melvin Henriksen henriksen@HMC.Edu.

9. John L. Kelley

The eminent topologist John L. Kelley of the University of California at Berkeley died on November 26, 1999.

He was famous for his research accomplishments, his refusal to sign a state imposed loyalty oath later declared unconstitutional, being the author of the definitive graduate text "General Topology" published in 1955, and helping to improve considerably the quality of its department of mathematics while being its chairman.

There is to be a memorial gathering for Kelley at Great Hall of the Faculty Club at 2pm Sunday, Jan. 30, 2000. This gathering is being organized by Leon Henkin and Henry Hellion. Prof. Isaac Nagoya will be one of the speakers.

10. 1999 Is a Year of Great Loss to Topology

Our ranks have been thinned aubstantially this year. Death has taken away F. B. Jones, Edwin Hewitt, Steve Purisch, Rae Shortt, J.L. Kelley, and Gail Young. As noted above, the Categories Network reports that John Isbell is recovering slowly from a grave illness. Other members of our community have serious medical problems that cannot be reported on without their consent.

Memorials for Rae Shortt and Edwin Hewitt appear in this issue of TopCom. More memorials will appear next year, and medical bulletins may be given as well.

11. A New Format for TopCom

The rate at which material for Topological Commentary arrives has slowed down. So, instead of waiting until enough new items have accumulated to constitute an issue, we will post items as they arrive. When enough items have been posted in any year, a new issue will be started.

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