From the American Mathematical Society today—
Richard Kane (1944-2010)
Tuesday October 5th 2010
Kane, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, died October 1 at the age of 66. He received his PhD from the University of Waterloo in 1973 under the direction of Peter Hoffman. Kane authored approximately 30 research papers and the texts The Homology of Hopf Spaces and Reflection Groups and Invariant Theory. He served as president and vice-president of the Canadian Mathematical Society and was the recipient of the Society's first David Borwein Distinguished Career Award in 2004 and its Distinguished Service Award in 2006. Kane was a member of the AMS since 1991. Read more about his life in an online obituary.
Richard Michael Kane
I added a link to a review of Kane's book on reflection groups to the Wikipedia article on that topic on August 20, 2005.
I just learned this morning of the death of Richard Kane. We became friends in high school and have kept in touch sporadically over the past 50-plus years. To me, and many of his friends, he wasn't Professor Kane, he was Dick and admired as much for his sense of humour, ready quips and ability to love and enjoy so many different things. In the early l960's we had a shared love – baseball. We'd travel to American stadiums on weekends and he'd sit and calculate the probabilities of a base being stolen or the need to insert pinch hitters in order to play the odds against the pitcher. Dick and Jo-Ann spent a few days with us in Vancouver during their comings and goings from San Diego and Australia and always, it was his sense of humour – droll and innocent – that had us all laughing. I understand that he was brilliant, a wonderful son, husband and father, but he was also a fabulous friend who will be long remembered and dearly missed. -Brian McCristall, Coquitlam, B.C.
Comment by Brian McCristall — Thursday, October 7, 2010 @ 2:42 pm