Mathematician:Saunders Mac Lane

Mathematician

American mathematician who cofounded category theory with Samuel Eilenberg.

Introduced the diagrammatic approach to mathematics, in particular pioneering the use of commutative diagrams.

Nationality

American

History

• Born: 4 August 1909, Taftville, Connecticut
• 1930: BA from Yale University
• 1931: MA from University of Chicago
• 1931 - 33: attended University of Göttingen
• 1934: awarded Ph.D. by Göttingen's Mathematisches Institut
• Died: 14 April 2005, San Francisco

Theorems and Definitions

• Eilenberg-Mac Lane Space (with Samuel Eilenberg)
• Category Theory (with Samuel Eilenberg)

Publications

• 1941: A Survey of Modern Algebra (with Garrett Birkhoff)
• 1948: Groups, Categories and Duality (Proceedings of the Nat. Acad. of Sciences of the USA Vol. 34: pp. 263 – 267)
• 1945: Relations between homology and homotopy groups of spaces (Annals of Mathematics Vol. 46: pp. 480 – 509) (with Samuel Eilenberg)
• 1950: Relations between homology and homotopy groups of spaces. II (Annals of Mathematics Vol. 51: pp. 514 – 533) (with Samuel Eilenberg)
• 1963: Homology
• 1965: A Brief Survey of Modern Algebra (with Garrett Birkhoff) (second revised edition of A Survey of Modern Algebra from $1941$)
• 1967: Algebra (with Garrett Birkhoff)
• 1971: Categories for the Working Mathematician
• 1986: Mathematics, Form and Function
• 1992: Sheaves in Geometry and Logic: A First Introduction to Topos Theory (with Ieke Moerdijk)
• 2005: Saunders Mac Lane: A Mathematical Autobiography

Also known as

Saunders Mac Lane was born Leslie Saunders MacLane.

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Saunders Mac Lane": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive