Person: Bass, Hyman
Hyman Bass is an American mathematician, known for work in algebra and in mathematics education.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Bass won a scholarship to enable him to attend, then entered Princeton thinking that he would probably major in physics.
- One of the courses in which Bass enrolled in his first year of study was a calculus course lectured by Emil Artin and tutored by Serge Lang and John Tate.
- Bass graduated from Princeton with a B.A. in 1955 and then went to the University of Chicago as an NSF graduate fellow to study for his Masters Degree.
- Inspired by Irving Kaplansky, after the award of an M.S. in 1956, Bass undertook work for his doctorate under his supervision.
- Bass gave explicit descriptions of the finite monadic algebras in his first paper, showing they were in one-one correspondence to finite sets of positive integers.
- The natural route for Bass to take at this stage would have been to take up a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study and concentrate solely on research.
- However Samuel Eilenberg was at Columbia University in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, New York and he persuaded Bass to take a teaching job there.
- Bass spent the year 1963-64 as an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the College de France.
- Bass served as Associate Professor and Chair at Barnard during 1964-65.
- During his period as professor, Bass was a Guggenheim Fellow at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Paris during the year 1968-69, then served as Chair of the Department of Mathematics at Columbia University from 1975 to 1979.
- We have mentioned some areas of Bass's work above, but he himself gives his research interests as algebraic K-theory; number theory; group theory (geometric methods); and algebraic geometry.
- To many people, Bass is best known for his classic text Algebraic K-theory published in 1968.
- For this outstanding book Bass was awarded the Van Amringe Prize from Columbia University in the year following its publication.
- Bass has visited many leading institutions around the world, spending varying periods of time.
- Although Bass was interested in mathematical education throughout his career, this interest took a different turn in 1991 when he was invited to join the Mathematical Sciences Education Board at the National Academy of Sciences.
- Finally we mention that Bass has served the American Mathematical Society in many roles.
Born 5 October 1932, Houston, Texas, USA.
View full biography at MacTutor
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Origin Usa
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- @J-J-O'Connor
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References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
