Many in the mathematical community were shocked in August 2016 when the Canadian-Australian mathematician Jonathan M. Borwein died unexpectedly at the age of 65. He continues to be missed by many.
One reason for creating a special issue to commemorate Borwein’s work is that he was an outstanding contributor to this Monthly. He wrote more than 30 articles for the Monthly, including some very distinguished pieces, contributed frequently to the Problems and Solutions section, and served on the Editorial Board for many years.
In addition, he was indisputably a great and prolific mathematician, with hundreds of published papers that are particularly striking in their breadth of coverage. As is quite well known, Borwein was a pioneer and untiring advocate of “experimental mathematics,” namely the aggressive utilization of computer technology in mathematics, including using computer programs to actually search for and discover new mathematical facts. Simultaneously he did leading-edge research in optimization—a paper coauthored with Jonathan Barzilai on two-point step size gradient methods has been cited over 1300 times. But even more broadly, Borwein published studies in computer science, visualization, applied mathematics, and mathematical finance.
Along the way, Borwein mentored dozens of students in their research, and inspired many more.
But beyond his own research, Borwein was a very effective expositor of mathematics. He was equally comfortable and adept at discussing the delights of π with high school students as he was lecturing on duality relationships for minimization problems. He published numerous articles in venues such as the Conversation, the Huffington Post, and well over 100 articles for various blogs, covering a broad range of topics in mathematics, computing, and modern science, and aimed at a wide range of readers.
This issue features several articles inspired by Professor Borwein’s research, written by several of his collaborators. We trust that these pieces will convey some of the excitement of his work.
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Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Sam Houston State University, Box 2206, Huntsville, TX 77341
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