Ryszard Engelking (16 November 1935 – 16 November 2023) was a Polish mathematician. He was working mainly 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

dimension theory In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coord ...

. He is the author of several influential monographs in this field. The 1989 edition of his ''General Topology'' is nowadays a standard reference for

topology Topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of a Mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformat ...

. Engelking died on 16 November 2023, his 88th birthday.

Scientific work

Apart from his books, Ryszard Engelking is known, among other things, for a generalization to an arbitrary

topological space In mathematics, a topological space is, roughly speaking, a Geometry, geometrical space in which Closeness (mathematics), closeness is defined but cannot necessarily be measured by a numeric Distance (mathematics), distance. More specifically, a to ...

of the "Alexandroff double circle", for works on completely metrizable spaces, suborderable spaces and generalized ordered spaces. The ''Engelking–Karlowicz theorem'', proved together with Monica Karlowicz, is a statement about the existence of a family of functions from

2^ \mu

\mu

with topological and set-theoretical Uri Abraham and

Menachem Magidor Menachem Magidor (; born January 24, 1946) is an Israeli mathematician who specializes in mathematical logic, in particular set theory. He served as president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was president of the Association for Symbolic ...

, Cardinal Arithmetic, Ch. 14 in Handbook of Set Theory (

Matthew Foreman Matthew Dean Foreman is an American mathematician at University of California, Irvine. He has made notable contributions in set theory and in ergodic theory. Biography Born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Foreman earned his Ph.D. from the Univer ...

, Akihiro Kanamori, Editors) pp. 1223, 1226. applications.

Books

Engelking's books include: * * * * *

Personalia

The Polish sociologist Barbara Engelking is a daughter of Ryszard Engelking.

Notes

External links

*
Engelking, Ryszard ''(zbMATH Open)''
1935 births 2023 deaths 20th-century Polish mathematicians Topologists Translators of Charles Baudelaire Translators of Gérard de Nerval People from Sosnowiec {{Poland-mathematician-stub