Nationality British Fields Mathematics | Name Denis Higgs | |
Born 6 May 1932England ( 1932-05-06 ) Thesis Matroids on Complete Boolean Algebras (1970) Notable students Philip Scott, Peter Schotch Known for Category theoryCombinatoricsUniversal algebra Institution University of the Witwatersrand, University of Cambridge, University of Waterloo | ||
Denis A. Higgs ((1932-05-06)6 May 1932 – February 25, 2011(2011-02-25)) was a British mathematician, Doctor of Mathematics, and professor of mathematics who specialised in combinatorics, universal algebra, and category theory. He wrote one of the most influential papers in category theory entitled A category approach to boolean valued set theory, which introduced many students to topos theory. He was a member of the National Committee of Liberation and was an outspoken critic against the apartheid in South Africa.
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Life
He earned degrees from Cambridge University, St John's College, in England and University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa,
In 1962, he became a member of the National Committee of Liberation, a movement whose main objective was to dismantle the apartheid in South Africa.
On 28 August 1964, he was kidnapped from his home in Lusaka, Zambia. Then South Africa's Justice Minister John Vorster, who later became Prime Minister, denied any involvement by either the South African government or the police.
On 1 September, an unidentified man who claimed to be part of British Protectorates, called the Rand Daily Mail newspaper and gave specific details of Denis Higgs's whereabouts. And on 2 September, police authorities found him. He was blindfolded and bound in a van over by the Zoo Park area.
On 6 September 1964, he fled to London, accompanied by his family. He later stated that he feared for his safety and that of his family, since a day before his departure, the South African government had begun proceedings of extradition for his alleged participation in the explosion at the Johannesburg Railway Station.
Career
He emigrated to Canada in 1966, and held a position as a professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, where he wrote one of the most influential papers in category theory entitled A category approach to boolean valued set theory, which introduced many students to topos theory.
In 1973, he generalised the Rasiowa-Sikorski Boolean models to the case of category theory.
His academic papers have been published in Algebra Universalis, in the Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra, in the Journal of The Australian Mathematical Society, in the Journal of the London Mathematical Society, and in the Mathematics of Computation journals, among others.
He died on 25 February 2011.