nLab Philip Higgins

Philip J. Higgins (born 1926, died March 25, 2015) was a British mathematician, who worked in areas of algebra and algebraic topology. He is well known for his book

Selected writings

On categories and groupoids:

• Philip J. Higgins, Categories and Groupoids, Mathematical Studies 32, van Nostrand New York (1971), Reprints in Theory and Applications of Categories 7 (2005) 1-195 [tac:tr7, pdf]

For his long standing collaboration with Ronnie Brown on nonabelian algebraic topology, see here.

His earlier paper

• P. J. Higgins, Algebras with a scheme of operators, Math. Nachr. 27 (1963) 115–132.

has been influential: it deals with partial operations, following on from his paper

• P. J. Higgins, Groups with multiple operators, Proc London Math. Soc. VI (1956) 366-416.

His paper

• P. J. Higgins, The fundamental groupoid of a graph of groups, J. London Math. Soc. (2), 13 (1976) 145–149,

developed methods that were later on used by Haefliger in assigning a groupoid to a complex of groups.

More recently he had worked with Kirill Mackenzie on Lie groupoids and Lie algebroids

category: people