Thursday 23 February 2012

Prof. dr. N.G. de Bruijn has passed away

In his obituary at Korteweg-de Vries Institute for Mathematics they mention that his de Bruijn sequences had practical applications in magic tricks but does not mention de novo assembly :-(

http://www.science.uva.nl/math/#item1329781416


Prof. dr. N.G. de Bruijn, 1918-2012

N.G. (Dick) de Bruijn passed away on 17 February 2012. He was an emeritus professor of the Technical University Eindhoven, where he was a professor of mathematics from 1960 until 1984. He came to Eindhoven from the University of Amsterdam, where he was a professor of mathematics during 1952-1960. He published in many different areas, in particular in analysis, number theory, combinatorics and logic. Famous is his book Asymptotic methods in analysis (1958). In later years he developed Automath, a computer program for automatic theorem proving. The De Bruijn sequences, named after him, are widely discussed in literature and have even applications in magic (see the recent book Magical mathematics by Persi Diaconis and Ron Graham).

For more information, see http://tinyurl.com/89yn946 (pdf file from Kleine TUE Encyclopedie) and http://tinyurl.com/6pkuuol (MacTutor History of Mathematics biography). See also on
http://www.win.tue.nl/debruijn90/video/debruijn.html the video of the lecture by de Bruijn during the symposium on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday.

No comments: