one week ago, while we were in vacation, one of our last two remaining cats was killed by a car, apparently while crossing a street.

rest in peace, tetris teero!

today, we had to put down our oldest cat, tomtom. (two years after his brother.)

rest in peace, tomtom!

in the last 30 days, a lot of things happened. the worst thing happening was that one of our cats, töffel, lost more and more strength and started looking really miserable. since in the weeks before we already had to give him infusions as he was drinking way too little, and he hated that pretty much, we decided not to start more medicine experiments and instead to stop his suffering by putting him to sleep. he’s probably better off now.

rest in peace, töffel!

two days ago, alexander grothendieck, one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, died. i’ve seen a small excerpt of his work in algebraic geometry and commutative algebra during my studies, phd and postdoc times. without his work and ideas, the theory of schemes wouldn’t be what it is today, and without it, the study of elliptic curves over rings might have taken quite a different road. (elliptic curves over rings are a topic i’ve been very interested in while working on my diplom thesis.) even though his active mathematical career stopped over 40 years ago, his work had an immense influence on generations of mathematicians.

rest in peace.

(a great obituary can be read at the telegraph.)

already two and a half weeks ago, scott vanstone died at age of 66. scott intensively pushed, commercialized and invested in elliptic curve cryptography from its beginnings on. he also co-founded the ecc conference series, which i attended eight times.

rest in peace, scott.

some of you might know harro heuser, a german mathematician. he is famous among students for his introductionary books on analysis, which explain very well and in great detail many aspects about the analysis which is taught to students of mathematics in the first year.

today, i was informed that he passed away.
rest in peace.

one thing is for sure: he won’t be forgotten by the next generations of mathematics students, since his textbooks are still some of the best ones available.

a bit more than one year after gary gygax died, another of the inventors of dungeons & dragons died: dave arneson. rest in peace.

i just read on blabbermouth that miika tenkula, once lead guitarist of sentenced when they still existed, died on february 19th, 2009, at the age of 35. that’s definitely too young.
thanks for your music. and rest in peace, miika.

she didn’t say it. never ever.
a cloud of dust, debris, arises. so majestic, somehow beautiful, but deadly. ripping apart the two bodies, parting them forever, leaving emtpyness. blackness wins, once again.
dil se.. (imdb), another bollywood movie, does not features a happy end in the classical sense, with blowing the lovers to dust. still, the beauty which can be found in particular in the last moments of the movie, is amazing. even though she didn’t say it, she accepts it and, somehow, expresses the yes, in her deep look into his eyes. if this isn’t, then what’s love after all?
then, in another glimpse of time, all is gone, shattered.
sounds familiar.

over the last two days, two famous persons died.

the first, who died on the 4th of march, is gary gygax, one of the inventors of the dungeons & dragons pen & paper role playing game, which had a large impact on a huge amount of people and many games, both for computers or without computers, both online and offline.

the second, who died on the 5th of march, is joseph weizenbaum, one of the founders of computer science and, later, one of the leading critics of artificial intelligence and the relation between computer science and society. one of the things he’s most famous for is eliza, an electronic parody of a therapist which was taken seriously by many people, to weizenbaum’s astonishment.

two personalities who changed the world. rest in peace.