Origins & Early Life

Samuel Eilenberg (September 30, 1913 – January 30, 1998) was a Polish-American mathematician who co-founded category theory (with Saunders Mac Lane) and homological algebra. He was born in Warsaw, Kingdom of Poland to a Jewish family. He spent much of his career as a professor at Columbia University. He earned his Ph.D.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

from University of Warsaw in 1936, with thesis On the Topological Applications of Maps onto a Circle; his thesis advisors were Kazimierz Kuratowski and Karol Borsuk. He died in New York City in January 1998. Eilenberg's main body of work was in algebraic topology. He worked on the axiomatic treatment of homology theory with Norman Earl Steenrod (and the Eilenberg–Steenrod axioms are named for the pair), and on homological algebra with Saunders Mac Lane. As a result of this work, Eilenberg and Mac Lane developed the field of category theory, for which they are now best known.

Enduring Legacy & Impact

Eilenberg was a member of Bourbaki and, with Henri Cartan, wrote the 1956 book Homological Algebra. Later in life he worked mainly in pure category theory, being one of the founders of the field. The Eilenberg swindle (or telescope) is a construction applying...

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