Hurewicz

Witold Hurewicz

Born: 29 June 1904 in Lodz, Russian Poland
Died: 6 Sept 1956 in Uxmal, Mexico

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Witold Hurewicz studied under Hans Hahn and Karl Menger in Vienna, receiving a Ph.D. in 1926. He was assistant to Brouwer in Amsterdam from 1928 to 1936. After this he visited the USA and decided to remain. He worked at North Carolina and the MIT. Hurewicz died falling off a pyramid on a conference excursion in Mexico.

His early work was on set theory and topology. He is best remembered for two things, his discovery of the higher homotopy groups and his discovery of exact sequences. His work led to homological algebra.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. S Lefschetz, Witold Hurewicz In Memoriam, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 63 (1957), 77-82. 
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