Andrew Ranicki

Andrew Ranicki
Andrew Ranicki at Oberwolfach in 2006
Born	(1948-12-30)30 December 1948 London
Died	21 February 2018(2018-02-21) (aged 69) Edinburgh
Alma mater	University of Cambridge
Spouse	Ida Thompson
Parent(s)	Marcel Reich-Ranicki and Teofila Reich-Ranicki
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Trinity College (Cambridge) Princeton University University of Edinburgh
Doctoral advisors	Andrew Casson John Frank Adams

Andrew Alexander Ranicki (born Andrzej Aleksander Ranicki; 30 December 1948 – 21 February 2018) was a British mathematician who worked on algebraic topology. He was a professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh.

Early life

Ranicki was the only child of the well-known literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki and the artist Teofila Reich-Ranicki; he spoke Polish in his family. He lived in Warsaw, in Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg and attended school in England from the age of sixteen.

Ranicki graduated from the University of Cambridge in Mathematics in 1969. At Cambridge he was a student of topologists Andrew Casson and John Frank Adams. He earned his doctoral degree in 1973 with a thesis on algebraic L-theory. Ranicki received numerous awards and honors for his scientific achievements during his studies. From 1972 to 1977 he was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

From 1977 to 1982, he was Assistant Professor at Princeton University. In 1982 he began at the University of Edinburgh as a lecturer; in 1987 he was promoted to Reader. In 1992, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Since 1995, Ranicki has been the Chair of Algebraic Surgery at the University of Edinburgh. Several times he stayed as a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, most recently in 2011.

Personal life and death

Ranicki was married to American paleontologist Ida Thompson in 1979; they have a daughter. Ranicki suffered from leukemia; he died peacefully in the presence of his wife.

Published works

• Exact sequences in the algebraic theory of surgery, Princeton University Press, 1981.
• Lower K and L Theory, London Mathematical Society Lecture Notes, Vol. 178, Cambridge University Press. 1992.
• Algebraic L-Theory and Topological Manifolds', Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics Vol. 102, Cambridge University Press, 1992.
• Algebraic and Geometric Surgery, Oxford University Press, 2002.
• High dimensional knot theory , Springer, 1998.
• with Bruce Hughes: Ends of Complexes , Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics Vol. 123, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• with Norman Levitt and Frank Quinn: "Algebraic and geometric topology" (Rutgers University conference, New Brunswick, 1983), Springer 1985, Lecture Notes in Mathematics Vol. 1126.
• Editor with David Lewis and Eva Bayer-Fluckiger: "Quadratic forms and their applications" (Conference Dublin 1999), Contemporary Mathematics Vol. 272, American Mathematical Society, 2000.
• Publisher: Noncommutative Localization in Algebra and Topology , London Mathematical Society Vol. 330, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• Editor with Steven Ferry and Jonathan Rosenberg: "The Novikov conjectures, index theorems and rigidity" (Oberwolfach, 1993), London Mathematical Society Lecture Notes, Vol. 226, 227, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Editor: The Hauptvermutung Book, Kluwer, 1996.
• Editor with Sylvain Cappell and Jonathan Rosenberg: Surveys on surgery theory. Papers dedicated to C.T. C. Wall.