Kiiti Morita was born on February 11, 1915 in Tokyo, he died on August 4, 1995. (Photos and detailed Information)
Professor Morita was a world class mathematician, who combined profound work in topology with brilliant insights into algebra. He left a legacy of mathematical ideas that affected not just algebra and topology, but indirectly many other areas as well; category theory, C*- algebras, even areas of applied mathematics. And he left a legacy for Japanese mathematicians, in particular, where it is estimated that more than half of the Japanese topologists today are directly or indirectly students of Professor Morita.
Morita equivalence and Morita duality are well-known concepts throughout the world. Hyman Bass, was the one who made Morita equivalence and the related ideas famous in the 1960's. He circulated notes from a series of lectures he gave afterwards, circulating in the United States, in Europe, and eventually in Japan as well.
Together with Tadasi Nakayama and Goro Azumaya, Morita is considered as one of those mathematician representing Japan in ring theory. But his main speciality may have been topology. In particular, he obtained many excellent results in the theory of topological spaces. His research on ring theory was done parallel with the study on topology. He did it two times. After the study on Morita equivalence and duality, he obtained results on localizations of categories of modules. At the final lecture he emphasised that in the course of obtaining the results in both cases the concepts in topology that he completely mastered were useful also in algebra by the anology between them.