properties of fractional powers of operators, at first for self-adjoint operators and then for more general situations. His theorem on the interpolation of complete continuity of such fractional power operators has been a basic tool in the theory of partial differential equations. Of comparable importance in applications is his extensive collection of works on the theory of positive operators, in particular results in which spectral gaps were estimated. His work on integral operators and superposition operators has also found many theoretical and practical applications. A major reason for this was his desire to always find readily verifiable conditions and estimates for whatever functional properties were under consideration. This is perhaps best seen in his work on topological methods in nonlinear analysis which he developed into a universal method for finding answers to such qualitative problems such as evaluating the number of solutions, describing the structure of a solution set and conditions for the connectedness of this set, convergence of Galerkin type approximations, the bifurcation of solutions in nonlinear systems, and so on.