Irving Kaplansky (
March 22, 1917–June 25, 2006) was a
Canadian mathematician. He was born in
Toronto, Ontario, Canada and attended the
University of Toronto as an undergraduate. After receiving his
Ph.D. from
Harvard in 1941 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.
References and external links
*
* Pearce, Jeremy. (2006, July 13).
Irving Kaplansky, 89, a Pioneer in Mathematical Exploration. The New York Times, p. C15
*
Video from Kaplansky with title Fun with Mathematics: Some Thoughts from Seven Decades
* Freund, Peter G. O.
Irving Kaplansky and Supersymmetry.
* Kaplansky, Irving, Commutative rings Revised edition. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.-London, 1974. ix+182
