Excerpts from emails

I have just heard about this terrible news regarding the death of Jon Borwein. It’s a real pity and big loss for the optimization community! Even if I didn’t know him personally please send my condolences to his family and friends! [3 Aug 2016, Hector Ramírez Cabrera, CMM, University of Chile]

What terrible and unexpected sad news. It is really hard to process. I was in contact with Jon a few days ago. My condolences to Judy and his daughters. We will miss you…. [3 Aug 2016, Alejandro Jofre, CMM, University of Chile]

Terrible news and terrible loss. Difficult to

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August 13th, 2016 | Category: Remembrances | Comments are closed

Sharing time with Jon was a unique gift

I just cannot come to terms with the fact that a person with so much energy and vitality can leave us so unexpectedly. It seems like a nightmare I cannot get over.

Last night I had a dream: I had an appointment with Jon and I was late. It was in a very big house full of rooms. I opened all doors one by one and after a while, I found a room with a table full of people discussing mathematics very passionately and Jon was leading the discussion. I apologised for being late but at the same time I

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August 13th, 2016 | Category: Remembrances | Comments are closed

Australian mathematics is in mourning

Jon was exceptionally bright in mathematics and beyond. In mathematics, I am aware of (and greatly impressed by) his passion for and achievements in experimental mathematics, computational number theory and other areas, but I belong to another region within the broad spectrum of Jon’s interests: optimisation and variational analysis. Here Jon has been a recognized world leader for decades. I first emailed Jon with a question regarding his celebrated smooth variational principle about 20 years ago without really expecting him to reply. (Fortunately he did.) Just this result alone published 29 years ago and named after him and his co-author

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August 11th, 2016 | Category: Remembrances | Comments are closed