Irving Kaplansky

Irving Kaplansky (March 22, 1917–June 25, 2006) was a Canadian mathematician. He was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada after his parents emigrated from Poland and attended the University of Toronto as an undergraduate. After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1941 [MathGenealogy|id=833] as Saunders Mac Lane's first student, Kaplansky was professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago from 1945 to 1984. He was chair of the department from 1962 to 1967.

"Kap," as his friends and colleagues called him, made major contributions to group theory, ring theory, the theory of operator algebras and field theory. He published over 150 papers with over 20 co-authors. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was Director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute from 1984 to 1992.

Kaplansky also was a noted pianist known to take part in Chicago performances of Gilbert and Sullivan productions. He often composed music based on mathematical themes. One of those compositions, "A Song About Pi", is a melody based on assigning notes to the first 14 decimal places of pi.

Kaplansky was the father of singer-songwriter Lucy Kaplansky, who occasionally performs "A Song About Pi" in her act.

He was among the first five recipients of William Lowell Putnam fellowships in 1938.

He has an Erdős number of 1 [ [http://www.oakland.edu/enp/erdpaths.html Paths to Erdos ] ] .

elected publications

* cite book | last = Kaplansky | first = Irving | title = Commutative Rings
series = Lectures in Mathematics | year = 1974 | month = September
publisher = University of Chicago Press | isbn = 0226424545
* [http://www.archive.org/details/lecture12090 "Fun with Mathematics: Some Thoughts from Seven Decades"] , a video lecture of Kaplansky's advice on writing mathematical papers

ee also

* Kaplansky conjecture
* Kaplansky density theorem

References and external links

*
*
* cite paper
author = Albert, Nancy E.
title = Irving Kaplansky: Some Reflections on His Early Years
date = 2007
url = http://zakuski.math.utsa.edu/~jagy/Kap_Nancy.pdf
format = PDF
accessdate = 2008-06-27
* Freund, Peter G. O. "Irving Kaplansky and Supersymmetry". arxiv|archive=physics|id=0703037
* cite journal
last = Bass
first = Hyman
authorlink = Hyman Bass
coauthors = Lam, T.Y.
year = 2007
month = December
title = Irving Kaplansky (1917–2006)
journal = Notices of the American Mathematical Society
volume = 54
issue = 11
pages = pp.1477–1493
url = http://www.ams.org/notices/200711/tx071101477p.pdf
format = PDF
accessdate = 2008-01-05
* cite journal
last = Kadison
first = Richard V.
authorlink = Richard Kadison
year = 2008
month = February
title = Irving Kaplansky's Role in Mid-Twentieth Century Functional Analysis
journal = Notices of the AMS
volume = 55
issue = 2
pages = pp.216–225
url = http://www.ams.org/notices/200802/tx080200216p.pdf
format = PDF
accessdate = 2008-01-05

* [http://zakuski.utsa.edu/~kap/ Irving Kaplansky + Ternary Quadratic Forms]

* [http://www.justpasha.org/math/links/subj/lie/kaplansky/ Irving Kaplansky + Lie Superalgebras]