Remembrances of Derek William Robinson (25 June 1935 - 31 August 2021)

TL;DR

This paper commemorates mathematician Derek William Robinson by sharing autobiographical notes, unpublished writings, and historical insights into his influential work, serving as a memorial and scholarly tribute.

Contribution

It provides a detailed memorial with personal anecdotes, unpublished notes, and historical context of Robinson's significant contributions to mathematics.

Findings

Includes autobiographical notes by Derek Robinson.

Contains unpublished notes on his seminal monographs.

Provides historical context of Robinson's work.

Abstract

This arXiv submission is posted primarily to make available some additional material to what we prepared for the Derek Memorial article published in the Notices of the AMS. We start (with the permission of the AMS) with the text of our submission close to the final published version (which you can get online. After that we include some autobiographical notes that Derek dictated to Louisa Barnsley (whom we thank) during his final illness. Finally some unpublished notes Derek wrote on the history of his seminal monographs with Bratelli. We thank Marion Robinson for permission and encouragement to post these items.