Gian-Carlo Rota was born in Vigevano, Italy, in 1932. He died in Cambridge, Mas- sachusetts, in 1999. He had several careers, most notably as a mathematician, but also as a philosopher and a consultant to the United States government. His mathe- matical career was equally varied. His early mathematical studies were at Princeton (1950 to 1953) and Yale (1953 to 1956). In 1956, he completed his doctoral thesis under the direction of Jacob T. Schwartz. This thesis was published as the pa- per "Extension theory of differential operators I," the first paper reprinted in this volume. Rota's early...
Gian-Carlo Rota was born in Vigevano, Italy, in 1932. He died in Cambridge, Mas- sachusetts, in 1999. He had several careers, most notably as a mathem...
