{"id":1945,"date":"2018-02-26T09:41:28","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T14:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/beyondreviews\/?p=1945"},"modified":"2018-03-14T08:29:16","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T13:29:16","slug":"andrew-ranicki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/beyondreviews\/2018\/02\/26\/andrew-ranicki\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Ranicki"},"content":{"rendered":"

From MFO (Oberwolfach)<\/p><\/div>\n

Andrew Ranicki<\/a> has died<\/a>. Ranicki was a topologist, with particular expertise in algebraic surgery.\u00a0 Indeed, Ranicki had the unusual title of Professor of Algebraic Surgery<\/a> at the University of Edinburgh<\/a>.\u00a0 (Andrew was a special case for almost everything.)\u00a0 His two papers on surgery in Proc. London Math. Soc. [MR0560997<\/a> and\u00a0MR0566491<\/a>\u00a0(*<\/strong>)] were among his most cited papers.\u00a0 \u00a0He was also familiar to many for his work in $K$-theory, including his work as an editor for leading journals in the subject.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ranicki received his doctorate<\/a> from Cambridge University under the supervision of Adams<\/a> and Casson<\/a>\u00a0with a dissertation titled “Algebraic L-Theory”.\u00a0 After Cambridge, he had positions at IHES, Princeton University, and the Institute for Advanced Studies.\u00a0 He came to Edinburgh in 1982.\u00a0 He had eleven PhD students<\/a>.\u00a0 In MathSciNet, he has\u00a023 coauthors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The sharing of mathematics was important to Ranicki.\u00a0 Many years ago, he told me about a project for videos of lectures on topology.\u00a0 \u00a0Ranicki and others were gathering existing videos, plus recording new videos to cover essential topics.\u00a0 They needed a convenient way to catalogue the URLs for the videos.\u00a0 Ranicki and his collaborators turned to Pinterest<\/a>\u00a0(which must have been just out of beta), creating the board Surgery Theory in Topology<\/a>.\u00a0 I had never heard of Pinterest, so this was my only exposure to it and figured it was some variant on math.stackexchange<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0I was surprised when my sister-in-law told me that she was active on Pinterest for information on recipes.\u00a0 She was more appropriately surprised to learn that I had an account and that I thought it was for mathematics and science.\u00a0 But, it worked for Ranicki — at least for a while.\u00a0 His account went dormant after a few years.<\/p>\n

Ranicki also shared what he knew through his writing, having written a half dozen books.\u00a0 A list of them is at the end of this post.\u00a0 He also edited or contributed to fifteen other books, collections, and conference proceedings.<\/p>\n

Ranicki was a remarkable mathematician, but perhaps an even more remarkable person.\u00a0 Many people would comment on his infectious laugh.\u00a0 And he laughed often.\u00a0 On my various visits to the University of Edinburgh to work with Toby Bailey<\/a>, Andrew would go out of his way to make me feel welcome.\u00a0 His home with his wife Ida Thompson was the site of many a gathering of mathematicians in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n

Andrew’s father was\u00a0Marcel Reich-Ranicki<\/a>, a very well-known literary critic and essayist, who, among many other things, was a writer and editor for the\u00a0Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung<\/em>.\u00a0 Both of Andrew’s parents were survivors of the Holocaust.\u00a0 Their personal history was hugely important to Andrew<\/a>.\u00a0 Through them, he knew directly of incredible horrors.\u00a0 Yet, Andrew was an incredibly positive person who loved life and loved people.<\/p>\n

Books by Andrew Ranicki:<\/h3>\n

MR0620795<\/a>
\nRanicki, Andrew
\nExact sequences in the algebraic theory of surgery.
\nMathematical Notes, 26. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.; University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo, 1981. xvii+864 pp. ISBN: 0-691-08276-6<\/p>\n

MR1208729<\/a>
\nRanicki, Andrew(4-EDIN)
\nLower K- and L-theory.
\nLondon Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series, 178. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992. vi+174 pp. ISBN: 0-521-43801-2<\/p>\n

MR1211640<\/a>
\nRanicki, A. A.(4-EDIN)
\nAlgebraic L-theory and topological manifolds.
\nCambridge Tracts in Mathematics, 102. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992. viii+358 pp. ISBN: 0-521-42024-5<\/p>\n

MR1410261<\/a>
\nHughes, Bruce(1-VDB); Ranicki, Andrew(4-EDIN)
\nEnds of complexes.
\nCambridge Tracts in Mathematics, 123. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996. xxvi+353 pp. ISBN: 0-521-57625-3<\/p>\n

MR1713074<\/a>
\nRanicki, Andrew(4-EDIN-MS)
\nHigh-dimensional knot theory.
\nAlgebraic surgery in codimension 2. With an appendix by Elmar Winkelnkemper. Springer Monographs in Mathematics. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1998. xxxvi+646 pp. ISBN: 3-540-63389-8<\/p>\n

MR2061749<\/a>
\nRanicki, Andrew(4-EDIN-MS)
\nAlgebraic and geometric surgery.
\nOxford Mathematical Monographs. Oxford Science Publications. The Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002. xii+373 pp. ISBN: 0-19-850924-3<\/p>\n

He was also an author on<\/p>\n

MR1434100<\/a>
\nRanicki, A. A.(4-EDIN-MS); Casson, A. J.(1-CA); Sullivan, D. P.(1-CUNY); Armstrong, M. A.(4-DRHM); Rourke, C. P.(4-WARW-MI); Cooke, G. E.
\nThe Hauptvermutung book.
\nA collection of papers of the topology of manifolds. K-Monographs in Mathematics, 1. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1996. vi+190 pp. ISBN: 0-7923-4174-0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

(*<\/strong>) For the joint review of the two Proc. London Math. Soc. papers, I recommend the PDF version<\/a>, as the commutative diagram in the review does not render in MathJax.<\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Ranicki has died. Ranicki was a topologist, with particular expertise in algebraic surgery.\u00a0 Indeed, Ranicki had the unusual title of Professor of Algebraic Surgery at the University of Edinburgh.\u00a0 (Andrew was a special case for almost everything.)\u00a0 His two … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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