MacTutor
Solomon Lefschetz
Times obituary
Engineer and Mathematician
Professor Solomon Lefschetz died in Princeton, New Jersey, on October 5, at the age of 88.
Born in Moscow, he studied in Paris, where he qualified as an engineer, and began an industrial career in the United States. In 1910, this career was cut short when he lost both his hands in an accident, but with unbelievable courage, he began a new life—as a pure mathematician. He spent three years as a graduate student at Clark University, where he met and married Miss Alice Hayes, whose care and support enabled him to master his disability and lead a full life with confidence and enjoyment. Taking up some of Henri Poincaré's work in algebraic geometry, he transferred it by making full use of the modern techniques of topology and his contributions from the basis of the subsequent theory of complex manifolds For this, he received the Prix Bordin in 1919, and it ultimately led to his appointment as professor at Princeton in 1925. He was also very active in the field of algebraic topology, and for the next 20 years he produced an impressive amount of original work, both in algebraic geometry and in topology. His enthusiasm and commanding personality enabled him to greatly influence the work of many of his juniors, so that they came to reverence him as the founder of their careers.
Lefschetz was head of the mathematics department of Princeton University from 1945 to 1953, and it fell to him to reestablish the department after the war. After 1954, he spent much time and energy helping to build up the department at the University of Mexico. His later research work was in the theory of differential equations and control theory, in which he became involved during the war, and in this he remained active until he was in his eighties.
He was a Foreign Member of the Royal Society.
Engineer and Mathematician
Professor Solomon Lefschetz died in Princeton, New Jersey, on October 5, at the age of 88.
Born in Moscow, he studied in Paris, where he qualified as an engineer, and began an industrial career in the United States. In 1910, this career was cut short when he lost both his hands in an accident, but with unbelievable courage, he began a new life—as a pure mathematician. He spent three years as a graduate student at Clark University, where he met and married Miss Alice Hayes, whose care and support enabled him to master his disability and lead a full life with confidence and enjoyment. Taking up some of Henri Poincaré's work in algebraic geometry, he transferred it by making full use of the modern techniques of topology and his contributions from the basis of the subsequent theory of complex manifolds For this, he received the Prix Bordin in 1919, and it ultimately led to his appointment as professor at Princeton in 1925. He was also very active in the field of algebraic topology, and for the next 20 years he produced an impressive amount of original work, both in algebraic geometry and in topology. His enthusiasm and commanding personality enabled him to greatly influence the work of many of his juniors, so that they came to reverence him as the founder of their careers.
Lefschetz was head of the mathematics department of Princeton University from 1945 to 1953, and it fell to him to reestablish the department after the war. After 1954, he spent much time and energy helping to build up the department at the University of Mexico. His later research work was in the theory of differential equations and control theory, in which he became involved during the war, and in this he remained active until he was in his eighties.
He was a Foreign Member of the Royal Society.
You can see the original newsprint at THIS LINK
