Věra Šedivá-Trnková (March 16, 1934 – 27 May 2018) was a Czech mathematician known for her work in

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformations, such ...

and in

category theory Category theory is a general theory of mathematical structures and their relations that was introduced by Samuel Eilenberg and Saunders Mac Lane in the middle of the 20th century in their foundational work on algebraic topology. Nowadays, cate ...

Early life and education

Trnková was born on March 16, 1934 in

Berehove Berehove ( uk, Берегове; hu, Beregszász) is a city located in Zakarpattia Oblast (province) in western Ukraine, near the border with Hungary. It is the cultural centre of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine. Serving as the administrativ ...

, then in

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

and now in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

; her father was a forester. By the time she was in high school, her family lived in Prague, and she went to

Charles University ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , undergr ...

for study in mathematics. There, she worked with

Miroslav Katětov Miroslav Katětov (; March 17, 1918, Chembar, Russia – December 15, 1995) was a Czech mathematician, chess master, and psychologist. His research interests in mathematics included topology and functional analysis. He was an author of the Kat� ...

general topology In mathematics, general topology is the branch of topology that deals with the basic set-theoretic definitions and constructions used in topology. It is the foundation of most other branches of topology, including differential topology, geomet ...

, earning a master's degree in 1957 with the thesis ''Collectionwise normal and strongly paracompact spaces'' on strengthened definitions for

normal space In topology and related branches of mathematics, a normal space is a topological space ''X'' that satisfies Axiom T4: every two disjoint closed sets of ''X'' have disjoint open neighborhoods. A normal Hausdorff space is also called a T4 space. Th ...

s. She continued her work on topology at Charles University as a doctoral student of

Eduard Čech Eduard Čech (; 29 June 1893 – 15 March 1960) was a Czech mathematician. His research interests included projective differential geometry and topology. He is especially known for the technique known as Stone–Čech compactification (in topolo ...

, earning a candidate's degree (the Czech equivalent of a Ph.D.) in 1961 with the dissertation ''Non-F-Topologies''. Much later, in 1989, she was also given the Dr.Sc. degree, corresponding to a

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

Later life and career

In 1960, while still a student, Trnková became an assistant professor at Charles University. She was promoted to docent (associate professor), senior researcher, and full professor in 1967, 1986, and 1991, respectively. She retired in 1999, and died on 27 May 2018.

Research

Despite beginning her career working in

, Trnková shifted as early as 1962 to

. Her work in this area included studied of formal completions of categories, the embeddings of categories into categories of topological spaces, category-theoretic

automata theory Automata theory is the study of abstract machines and automata, as well as the computational problems that can be solved using them. It is a theory in theoretical computer science. The word ''automata'' comes from the Greek word αὐτόματο� ...

, and the isomorphism of product objects in categories. She became the author of over 100 research papers and two

monograph A monograph is a specialist work of writing (in contrast to reference works) or exhibition on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author or artist, and usually on a scholarly subject. In library cataloging, ''monograph ...

s: *''Combinatorial, algebraic and topological representations of groups, semigroups and categories'' (with Aleš Pultr, North-Holland Mathematical Library 22, North-Holland, 1980) *''Automata and algebras in categories'' (with Jiří Adámek, Mathematics and its Applications 37, Kluwer, 1990)

References

External links

Home page
(archived 26 March 2015)
Věra Trnková on nLab
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trnkova, Vera 1934 births 2018 deaths Czech mathematicians Women mathematicians Charles University alumni Charles University faculty Topologists Category theorists