Karol Borsuk

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Karol Borsuk (May 8, 1905, Warsaw – January 24, 1982, Warsaw) was a Polish mathematician. His main interest was topology.

Borsuk introduced the theory of absolute retracts (ARs) and absolute neighborhood retracts (ANRs), and the cohomotopy groups, later called Borsuk-Spanier cohomotopy groups. He has constructed various beautiful examples of topological spaces, e.g. an acyclic, 3-dimensional continuum which admits a fixed point free homeomorphism onto itself; also 2-dimensional, contractible polyhedra which have no free edge. His topological and geometric conjectures and themes stimulated research for more than half a century.

Borsuk received his master's degree and doctorate from Warsaw University in 1927 and 1930, respectively; his Ph.D. thesis advisor was Stefan Mazurkiewicz. He was a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences from 1952. Borsuk's students included Samuel Eilenberg and Krystyna Kuperberg.

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[edit] Works

  • Geometria analityczna w n wymiarach (1950)
  • Podstawy geometrii (1955)
  • Foundations of Geometry (1960) with Wanda Szmielew, North Holland publisher
  • Theory of Retracts (1966)
  • Theory of Shape (1975)

[edit] External links


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