Witold Hurewicz: Difference between revisions

{{refimprovemore citations needed|date=September 2019}}

Witold Hurewicz was born in [[Łódź]], at the time one of the main Polish industrial hubs with economy focused on the textile industry. His father, Mieczysław Hurewicz, was an industrialist born in [[Wilno]], which until 1939 was mainly populated by Poles and Jews.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=6EICfJrepKQC&pg=PR45&lpg=PR45&dq Samuel Eilenberg, Witold Hurewicz (personal reminiscences)]</ref> His mother was Katarzyna Finkelsztain who hailed from [[Biała Cerkiew]], a town that belonged to the [[Crown of the Kingdom of Poland|Kingdom of Poland]] until the [[Second Partition of Poland]] (1793) when it was taken by [[Russia]].

He studied under [[Hans Hahn (mathematician)|Hans Hahn]] and [[Karl Menger]] in [[Vienna]], receiving a [[Ph.D.PhD]] in 1926. Hurewicz was awarded a [[Rockefeller Foundation|Rockefeller scholarship]], which allowed him to spend the year 1927–28 in [[Amsterdam]]. He was assistant to [[L. E. J. Brouwer]] in Amsterdam from 1928 to 1936. He was given study leave for a year, which he decided to spend in the United States. He visited the [[Institute for Advanced Study]] in [[Princeton, New Jersey]] and then decided to remain in the United States and not return to his position in Amsterdam.

In the field of [[general topology]] his contributions are centred on [[dimension theory]]. He wrote an important text with [[Henry Wallman]], ''[[Dimension Theory]]'', published in 1941.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Smith, P. A.|author-link=Paul A. Smith|title=Review: ''Dimension Theory'', by W. Hurewicz and H. Wallman|journal=[[Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.]]|year=1942|volume=48|issue=9, Part 1|pages=641–642|url=http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1942-48-09/S0002-9904-1942-07723-8/|doi=10.1090/S0002-9904-1942-07723-8|doi-access=free}}</ref> A reviewer writes that the book "...is truly a classic. It presents the theory of dimension for separable metric spaces with what seems to be an impossible mixture of depth, clarity, precision, succinctness, and comprehensiveness."

Hurewicz is best remembered for three remarkable contributions to mathematics: his discovery of the [[higher homotopy groups]] in 1935–36, his discovery of the [[Homotopy long exact sequence#Long exact sequence of a fibration|long exact homotopy sequence]] for fibrations[[fibration]]s in 1941, and the [[Hurewicz theorem]] connecting homotopy and [[Homology (mathematics)|homology]] groups. His work led to [[homological algebra]]. It was during Hurewicz's time as Brouwer's assistant in Amsterdam that he did the work on the higher homotopy groups; "...the idea was not new, but until Hurewicz nobody had pursued it as it should have been. Investigators did not expect much new information from [[Group (mathematics)|groups]], which were obviously [[commutative]]..."

He died after participating in the [[International Symposium on Algebraic Topology]] <ref>{{cite web |last1=Hurewicz |first1=Witold |title=Symposium Internacional de Topologia Algebraica |url=https://www.google.com/search?q=International+Symposium+on+Algebraic+Topology#ip=1 |website=University of Edinburgh |access-date=February 25, 2024}}</ref> at the [[National Autonomous University of Mexico]] in [[Mexico City]]. He tripped and fell off the top of a [[Maya civilization|Mayan]] [[step pyramid]] during an outing in [[Uxmal]], [[Mexico]]. In the ''[[Dictionary of Scientific Biography]]'' it is suggested that he was "...a paragon of absentmindedness, a failing that probably led to his death."

* {{cite journal | last1 = Lefschetz | first1 = Solomon | author-link = Solomon Lefschetz | year = 1957 | title = Witold Hurewicz, In memoriam | url = http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.bams/1183521492 | journal = Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. | volume = 63 | issue = 2 | pages = 77–82 | doi=10.1090/s0002-9904-1957-10101-3| doi-access = free }}

[[Category:UniversityAccidental ofdeaths Amsterdamfrom facultyfalls]]

[[Category:PolishAccidental Jewsdeaths in Mexico]]