Paul Cohen, 1934-2007

Paul Cohen died on Friday of a rare lung disease. This came over FOM today:

We are very sorry to tell you that Paul Cohen has suddenly passed away.

He has had a rare lung disease for maybe two years now, but symptoms only began to really manifest about a year ago. We did not know that the disease had progressed nearly as much as it clearly had.

On Monday Paul had a bad attack and was taken to the emergency room, and we were told then that the situation was very grave. But after receiving medication he stabilized and seemed fine and was actually going to be released this Friday morning. But Thursday morning his lungs failed and he became unconscious and did not awaken. So this whole thing has been a total shock to us (twice).

Overall he had not been in pain at all and was only on relatively low levels of oxygen. Just this Sunday he and my mother went out to dinner and the movie theater. And on Wednesday night when we last saw him conscious he was happy and completely alert.

There will most likely be a small service for friends and family and then a larger one afterwards hosted by the Stanford math department. As of now we have not made definite plans

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