Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 08:20:08 -0300 (ADT) Subject: Prof. Nobuo Yoneda passed away Date: Tue, 23 Apr 96 12:18:58 JST From: KINOSHITA Yoshiki Prof. Nobuo Yoneda passed away at 12:21 on Sunday, 21 April, due to heart failure. He was attacked by acute pancreatitis in January and had been in bed since then. The funeral will take place at his house at 12:00 on Wednesday, 24 April, in Shintoist style. Very little is known about Prof. Yoneda in Euro-America-Australian community. So, I will try to write what I heard from Yoneda; there might be some inaccuracy since I am relying on my memory. Also, I work in computer science and do not understand much of mathmatics. I would very much appreciate any corrections or supplements. Prof. Yoneda was born on 28 March, 1930. He studied mathematics in the University of Tokyo; in the last year of his studies he followed the seminar of Prof. Shokiti Iyanaga, where he became interested in algebraic topology. Soon after that (or maybe when he was still an undergraduate), Prof. Samuel Eilenberg visited Japan, and Yoneda traveled around Japan with him, as a translator and guide. At that time, he was exposed to the Cartan-Eilenberg book, which was still in galley form. Later, he got a Fulbright scholarship and he visited Princeton, to study with Eilenberg. Those days, the Yen was still very weak, so even the Fulbright money was not enough to support even a modest living in U.S. Therefore, he worked as a proofreader at a European publisher (Elsevier? NorthHolland? maybe American), to earn money for the study in U.S. Even 25 years later, he seemed to be proud of his professional skill as a proofreader, which he gained then. When he arrived in Princeton, Eilenberg had moved (sabbatical?) to France (or maybe, Eilenberg left US just after Yoneda's arrival). So, Yoneda went to France a year later. At that time, Saunders Mac Lane was visiting category theorists, apparently to obtain information to write his book (or former survey), and he met the young Yoneda, among others. The interview started in a Caf\'{e} at Gare du Nord, and went on and on, and was continued even in Yoneda's train until its departure. The contents of this talk was later named by Mac Lane as Yoneda lemma. So, the famous Yoneda lemma was born in Gare du Nord. This must have been a good memory for Yoneda; I heard him tell this story many times. I do not know whether Mac Lane managed to leave the train before departure! Yoneda's trip to America/Europe continued for two years. When he came back to Japan, his thesis advisor, Iyanaga, suggested him to begin studying computers, which he did. Some computer scientists know Yoneda as a member of Algol68 committee. Until 1976, Yoneda was a professor of the department of mathematics at Gakushu-in University in Tokyo, and he took a professorship in 1977 at the newly established department of information science at the University of Tokyo, where he had 15 MSc. students (in Japan, MSc students are research students, at least before 1990) and at least 5 DSc. (Doctor of Science, equivalent to Euro-American PhD) students, three of which are DSc course students. He retired from the University of Tokyo in 1990, at the age of 60, as is custom there, and moved to Tokyo Denki University, where he worked as a professor until this March. I do not know the phrase in English for this situation, so permit me to write in Japanese: tutusinde Yoneda sensei no gomeihuku wo oinori mousiagemasu. Yoshiki Kinoshita -- Electrotechnical Laboratory 1-1-4, Umezono, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki, 305 Japan phone: 0298-58-5859 FAX: 0298-58-5891 e-mail: yoshiki@etl.go.jp