Related papers: Jonathan Michael Borwein 1951-2016: Life and Legac…
In November 2014 Alexander Grothendieck passed away at the age of 86. There is no doubt that he was one of the greatest and most innovative mathematicians of the 20th century. After a bitter childhood, his meteoric ascent started in the…
On Saturday 26 September, around 4am, John Barrow died aged 67, with his wife Elizabeth and son Roger at his side. From a scientific perspective, it is hard to conceive a more premature end. During lockdown alone, whilst undergoing…
A short essay on the life and mathematical heritage of Coble. A substantially edited version will be part of the series of biographical memoirs of past members of the National Academy of Sciences. Version 2: minor changes. Version 3. Typo…
This text offers a personal account of the scientific legacy of two giants of mathematical physics at the turn of the Millenium and their heritage in Canada, their land of adoption.
This contribution to the book in honour of J.S. Bell will probably differ from the remaining ones, in particular since only a part of it will be devoted to specific technical arguments. In fact I have considered appropriate to share with…
My thesis describes the life and work of the mathematician Major Percy Alexander MacMahon (1854-1929). His early life as as a soldier in the Royal Artillery and the events which led to him embarking on a career in mathematical research and…
This paper provides some reflections on the field of mathematical software on the occasion of John Rice's 65th birthday. I describe some of the common themes of research in this field and recall some significant events in its evolution.…
Julian Besag was an outstanding statistical scientist, distinguished for his pioneering work on the statistical theory and analysis of spatial processes, especially conditional lattice systems. His work has been seminal in statistical…
I want to write about what I know and remember about the activities of Leonid Vital'evich Kantorovich, an outstanding scientist of the 20th century; about his dramatic struggle for recognition of his mathematical economic theories; about…
Detlef D\"urr (1951-2021) was a theoretical and mathematical physicist who worked particularly on the foundations of quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, and statistical mechanics. This piece is a rather personal look back at him and his…
This is a retrospective of some of William Arveson's many contributions to operator theory and operator algebras.
The article is dedicated to recalling the life and mathematics of Louis Nirenberg, a distinguished Canadian mathematician who recently died in New York, where he lived. An emblematic figure of Analysis and Partial Differential Equations in…
I published an interview of Leo Breiman in Statistical Science [Olshen (2001)], and also the solution to a problem concerning almost sure convergence of binary tree-structured estimators in regression [Olshen (2007)]. The former summarized…
This is a brief account of the legacy of Ken Wilson in statistical physics, high energy physics, computing and education.
We describe our adventures in creating a new first-year course in Experimental Mathematics that uses active learning. We used a state-of-the-art facility, called The Western Active Learning Space, and got the students to "drive the…
This article is a reflection on the mathematical legacy of Professor Petr Simon.
The career and accomplishments of Julian Schwinger, who shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1965, have been reviewed in numerous books and articles. For this reason these Memories, which seek to convey a sense of Schwinger's remarkable…
Patrick Moss (1947--2024) had two distinct lives as a mathematician. The first was as a ring theorist in the late 1970s, in which he worked with Ginn and Lenagan as a student. After a long career as an inspirational mathematics teacher,…
We review the work of Dominic Welsh (1938-2023), tracing his remarkable influence through his theorems, expository writing, students, and interactions. He was particularly adept at bringing different fields together and fostering the…
Leo Breiman was a unique character. There will not be another like him. I consider it one of my great fortunes in life to have know and worked with him. Along with John Tukey, Leo had the greatest influence on shaping my approach to…