Re: Re: Jens-Peer Kuska passed away
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg101518] Re: [mg101461] Re: [mg101427] Jens-Peer Kuska passed away
- From: "Frank Murray" <fjmurray at comcast.net>
- Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 01:56:21 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <64107.76.247.166.94.1246854595.squirrel@webmail.wolfram.com> <200907070905.FAA22125@smc.vnet.net> <200907081108.HAA12096@smc.vnet.net>
Our salute goes out to him, our condolences to his family and friends. He will be missed. fjm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrzej Kozlowski" <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl> To: <mathgroup at smc.vnet.net> Sent: Wednesday, 08 July 2009 07:08 Subject: [mg101518] [mg101461] Re: [mg101427] Jens-Peer Kuska passed away > This is indeed a very tragic and sad news. The MathGroup will never be > the same again. > > I would like to add just a few words from myself. > > I have known Jens-Peer through the MathGroup since I started to > participate in in in 1998. At that time I was a newbie and he one of > the most active and most knowledgeable contributors. There seemed to > be no area of computer science, physics or other science Jens-Peer did > not know about. He was a brilliant C programmer, and expert in many > other computer languages but it was clear (and he often stated it) > that he loved Mathematica above all others. This made him sometimes > impatient with people who criticized without understanding it, but > even when he seemed to be annoyed he always gave practical and useful > advice. > > Around the 2001 I started teaching geometry of polyhedra at the > university (in Japan) where I worked as a professor. I wanted to use a > 3D viewer but found RealTime3D - (and Open GL based hack used by > Mathematica before version 6 as a stop-gap measure) unsatisfactory. > However, I remembered that I had seen a MathGroup post by Russel Towle > in which he praised MathGL 3d - an Open GL and MathLink based program > as being ideal for the purpose I had in mind. > Unfortunately MathGl 3d at that time did not run on Macs. I wrote to > Jens-Peer asking him about a Mac version and he replied that he had no > access to Macs but WRI was going to send him an i-Mac and he would let > me know when a Mac version becomes available. > So, while waiting for that, I run MathGl3d slowly under emulation on > my Mac and while my students used much faster Windows version. It > would take a long time to describe how impressive this program was at > that time. It's enough to say that many of its capabilities are still > unmatched by Mathematica in version 7. In particular, what I found > particularly useful was the superb function MVContourPlot3D, which is > still much faster and more accurate than ContourPlot3D in Mathematica > 7. In any many of my students became quite expert at using this > program and one even detailed wrote a (Japanese language) manual as > part of her graduation thesis. > > I met Jens-Peer personally just once, during the IMS at Imperial > College London in 2003. He gave a fascinating talk on medical image > processing and after that I had a chance to exchange a few words with > him. The memory of his wit and intelligence remains with me to this > day. I reminded him about this promised Mac version of Math GL 3d, and > he told me that he was having more problems than he had expected due > to bugs in Apple's implementation of Open GL. > > Two more years past and assumed that Jens-Peer had forgotten all about > this. But then in 2005 unexpectedly I got an e-mail from him with a > link from which I was able to download a working version for Mac OS X. > I was very pleased and immediately started using it in my lectures (by > that time at a different university and on a different topic). Soon > after that an announcement from WRI appeared in the MathGroup to the > effect that MathGL3d was now a commercial (and not very cheap) package > sold by Wolfram Research. In effect I got a fairy expensive present, > which I would never had asked for if I had known about it. > > In fact this was very typical of Jens-Peer - he helped people in such > a unpretentious and undemanding way that one often did not appreciate > that there was a cost in it for him. > > Jens-Peer was, by the way, a research professor at the University of > Lepipzig, one of the oldest universities in Europe located in the city > of Johann Sebastian Bach. His manner was, however, so direct and > unpretentious that probably only a few of the many MathGroup users > whose questions he answered ever realized it. > > Andrzej Kozlowski > > > > On 7 Jul 2009, at 18:05, mtrott at wolfram.com wrote: > >> Dear Mathgroup, >> >> I am sorry to inform you that Jens-Peer Kuska passed away last week. >> He was 45 years old. >> >> I have known Jens-Peer since the early 80s when we both studied >> physics >> at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Our departments were on opposite >> sides of the first floor hallway. >> >> After Germany's reunification and the availability of more computers >> and software, Jens-Peer's favorite program soon become Mathematica. >> And he evolved to be a true expert of it. >> >> His broad and detailed mathematics and physics knowledge allowed >> Jens to cover new areas in computer graphics with his OpenGL viewer >> and in his work on medical image processing. >> >> Most of the Mathgroup readers know Jens-Peer from his short, to the >> point, >> helpful, stimulating contributions to Mathgroup, where he >> contributed so >> many times for more than 10 years. >> >> http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=OYlIrx8AAACUxZjYdkFuXRkVM5CWP0nj1ZkYyRt9DFmqLZPJWZ3WHA >> >> And the German-speaking Mathematica user knew him additionally from >> his >> many contribution to the German Mathematica user group: >> >> http://www.google.com/#q=Jens-Peer+Kuska >> +site:www.mathematica.ch&hl=en&fp=1&cad=b >> >> Jens-Peer was a brilliant Mathematica (and in general) programmer who >> was able to code complicated algorithms efficiently and elegantly. His >> reservoir of ideas what to implement, calculate, investigate, or >> visualize was virtually unlimited. >> >> For the ones that were fortunate to know him in person and discuss >> Mathematica, mathematics, physics, or image-processing issues with >> him, >> know the value of his deep, critical, and constructive opinions and >> contributions. >> He loved to discuss so many different topics, ranging from >> Fullform[]s of >> Mathematica graphics expressions to shape-characteristics of averaged >> Wigner functions of quantum systems and the use of partial >> differential >> equations to image processing tasks. >> We all will miss such discussions with him in the future. >> >> Jens-Peer will be missed by the Mathematica community, his university >> department >> (http://www.izbi.uni-leipzig.de/englisch/izbi/mitarbeiter/kuska.php), >> his former students, his friends, and of course, his family. >> >> Michael Trott >> Wolfram Research > >
- References:
- Jens-Peer Kuska passed away
- From: mtrott@wolfram.com
- Re: Jens-Peer Kuska passed away
- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz@mimuw.edu.pl>
- Jens-Peer Kuska passed away