Horst Herrlich (11 September 1937, in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

– 13 March 2015, in

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...

) was a German mathematician, known as a pioneer of categorical topology.

Education and career

Horst Herrlich received his PhD in 1962 with thesis ''Ordnungsfähigkeit topologischer Räume'' (Orderability of topological spaces) under Karl Peter Grotemeyer and Alexander Dinghas at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...

, where he also received his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

in 1965 with a thesis on E-compact spaces (introduced by Stanisław Mrówka in 1958). From 1971 to 2002 Herrlich was a professor of mathematics with a focus on

general topology In mathematics, general topology (or point set topology) is the branch of topology that deals with the basic set-theoretic definitions and constructions used in topology. It is the foundation of most other branches of topology, including differ ...

and

category theory Category theory is a general theory of mathematical structures and their relations. It was introduced by Samuel Eilenberg and Saunders Mac Lane in the middle of the 20th century in their foundational work on algebraic topology. Category theory ...

at the

University of Bremen The University of Bremen () is a public university in Bremen, Germany, with approximately 18,400 students from 117 countries. Its 12 faculties offer more than 100 degree programs. The University of Bremen has been among the top 50 European rese ...

. He was part of the editorial staff for the third volume ''Deskriptive Mengenlehre und Topologie'' of the collected works of

Felix Hausdorff Felix Hausdorff ( , ; November 8, 1868 – January 26, 1942) was a German mathematician, pseudonym Paul Mongré (''à mogré' (Fr.) = "according to my taste"), who is considered to be one of the founders of modern topology and who contributed sig ...

. He was an Invited Speaker of the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the IMU Abacus Medal (known before ...

in 1974 in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

. He is regarded as a founder of categorical topology, which deals with general topology using the methods of category theory.

Selected publications

* * with George E. Strecker: * * * * with Jiří Adámek and George E. Strecker: *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Herrlich, Horst 20th-century German mathematicians 21st-century German mathematicians Free University of Berlin alumni Academic staff of the University of Bremen 1937 births 2015 deaths Topologists Category theorists