Obituary: Johannes Boersma (1937–2004), a remarkable mathematician

A Mathematician Reads

New York University mathematical physicist Alan Sokal published in the postmodern humanities journal Social Text a parody entitled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” [1]. His point in doing so was to test whether the field of “cultural studies of science” was seriously lacking in “intellectual standards”. His article is nonsense from start to...

The mathematician as a formalist

Obituary: George A. Miller

George Armitage Miller died on July 22, 2012, at the age of ninety-two. He led a rich life full of accomplishments in the three areas of activity that he had chosen as a young man: psychology, writing, and golf. Miller was not only a witness but a key player in the major paradigm shift of the 20th century that came to be known as the cognitive revolution. Incredible as it may seem today, his te...

Obituary

Jonathan Borwein: Experimental Mathematician

Jonathan M. Borwein unexpectedly died on 2 August 2016, in London, Ontario, Canada, where he had been visiting on leave from home institution, the University of Newcastle, Australia. Since his death, the present author and Nelson H. F. Beebe of the University of Utah have been collecting Borwein’s many published papers, books, reports and talks, as well as a number of articles written by others...