Eduard Čech (; 29 June 1893 – 15 March 1960) was a Czech

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. His research interests included projective differential geometry and

topology Topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of a Mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformat ...

. He is especially known for the technique known as Stone–Čech compactification (in topology) and the notion of

Čech cohomology In mathematics, specifically algebraic topology, Čech cohomology is a cohomology theory based on the intersection properties of open set, open cover (topology), covers of a topological space. It is named for the mathematician Eduard Čech. Moti ...

. He was the first to publish a proof of

Tychonoff's theorem In mathematics, Tychonoff's theorem states that the product of any collection of compact topological spaces is compact with respect to the product topology. The theorem is named after Andrey Nikolayevich Tikhonov (whose surname sometimes is tra ...

in 1937.

Biography

He was born in Stračov, then in

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

, now in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. His father was Čeněk Čech, a policeman, and his mother was Anna Kleplová. After attending the gymnasium in Hradec Králové, Čech was admitted to the Philosophy Faculty of

Charles University Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...

of Prague in 1912. In 1915 he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army and participated in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, after which he completed his undergraduate degree in 1918. He received his doctoral degree in 1920 at Charles University; his thesis, titled ''On Curves and Plane Elements of the Third Order'', was written under the direction of

Karel Petr Karel Petr (; 14 June 1868, Zbyslav, Austria-Hungary – 14 February 1950, Prague, Czechoslovakia) was a mathematician from Bohemia in Austria-Hungary and later Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slov ...

. In 1921–1922 he collaborated with

Guido Fubini Guido Fubini (19 January 1879 – 6 June 1943) was an Italian mathematician, known for Fubini's theorem and the Fubini–Study metric. Life Born in Venice, he was steered towards mathematics at an early age by his teachers and his father, ...

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

, Italy. He taught at Masaryk University in

Brno Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...

and at Charles University. Ivo Babuška, Vlastimil Dlab, Zdeněk Frolík, Věra Trnková, and Petr Vopěnka have been doctoral students of Čech. He attended the First International Topological Conference held in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

4–10 September 1935. He made two presentations there: "Accessibility and homology" and " Betti groups with different coefficient groups". He died in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

in 1960.

Publications

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References

External links

List of publications from ''Czech Digital Mathematics Library''
1893 births 1960 deaths People from Hradec Králové District People from the Kingdom of Bohemia Czech mathematicians 20th-century Czech mathematicians Topologists Charles University alumni Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars Academic staff of Masaryk University Academic staff of Charles University Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I {{Europe-mathematician-stub

Biography

Publications

See also

References

External links