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Christopher Zeeman
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==Overview== Zeeman's main contributions to mathematics were in [[topology]], particularly in [[knot theory]], the [[Piecewise linear manifold|piecewise linear]] category, and [[dynamical systems]]. His 1955 thesis at the [[University of Cambridge]] described a new theory termed "dihomology", an algebraic structure associated to a [[topological space]], containing both [[Homology (mathematics)|homology]] and [[cohomology]], introducing what is now known as the Zeeman [[spectral sequence]]. This was studied by Clint McCrory in his 1972 Brandeis thesis following a suggestion of [[Dennis Sullivan]] that one make "a general study of the Zeeman [[spectral sequence]] to see how singularities in a space perturb [[Poincaré duality]]". This in turn led to the discovery of [[intersection homology]] by [[Robert MacPherson (mathematician)|Robert MacPherson]] and [[Mark Goresky]] at [[Brown University]] where McCrory was appointed in 1974. From 1976 to 1977 he was the [[Donegall Lecturer in Mathematics]] at [[Trinity College Dublin]]. Zeeman is known among the wider scientific public for his contribution to, and spreading awareness of [[catastrophe theory]], which was due initially to another topologist, [[René Thom]], and for his Christmas lectures about mathematics on television in 1978. He was especially active in encouraging the application of mathematics, and catastrophe theory in particular, to biology and behavioural sciences.
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