Irving Kaplansky

Irving Kaplansky (1917 to 2006) was a Canadian mathematician, college professor, author and amateur musician, known to friends as Kap. Born in Toronto to Polish-Jewish immigrants, he finished first in his class at the University of Toronto and was one of the first five Putnam Fellows before taking his doctorate at Harvard in 1941 as Saunders Mac Lane's first student. He taught at the University of Chicago from 1945 to 1984, chairing the department from 1962 to 1967, and later directed the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and served as president of the American Mathematical Society. He made major contributions to group theory, ring theory, operator algebras and field theory, published more than 150 articles and eleven books, and supervised 55 doctoral students. He also composed music on mathematical themes.