Jonathan Michael Borwein (20 May 1951 – 2 August 2016) was a Scottish mathematician who held an appointment as Laureate Professor of mathematics at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He was a close associate of David H. Bailey, and they have been prominent public advocates of experimental mathematics.

Borwein's interests spanned pure mathematics (analysis), applied mathematics (optimization), computational mathematics (numerical and computational analysis), and high performance computing. He authored ten books, including several on experimental mathematics, a monograph on convex functions, and over 400 refereed articles. He was a co-founder in 1995 of software company MathResources, consulting and producing interactive software primarily for school and university mathematics. He was not associated with MathResources at the time of his death.

Borwein was also an expert on the number pi and especially its computation.

Early life and education

Borwein was born in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1951 into a Jewish family. His father was mathematician David Borwein, with whom he collaborated. His brother Peter Borwein was also a mathematician.

Borwein was married to Judith (née Roots), and had three daughters. He served as chair of various NATO scientific programs. He was also Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI). He chaired the Canadian HPC consortium, later Compute Canada, and the International Mathematical Union's Committee on Electronic Information and Communications (2002–2008).

Awards

Borwein received various awards including the Chauvenet Prize (1993), Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada (1994), Fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2002), an honorary degree from Limoges (1999), and foreign membership in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (2003). He was elected as a Fellow to the Australian Academy of Science (2010). In 2014, he became a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He was an ISI highly cited mathematician for the period 1981–1999.

See also

  • Borwein integral
  • Borwein's algorithm
  • List of University of Waterloo people

References

  • Jonathan Borwein's homepage
  • Jonathan Borwein memorial website
  • The experimental mathematics homepage and blog
  • Researcher ID