astronomy

Jonathan Borwein

Jonathan Borwein is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Jonathan Borwein rather than just read about it. In short: 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.

Key takeaways

Jonathan Borwein belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Jonathan Borwein to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Jonathan Borwein from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

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 received his B.A. (Honours Math) from University of Western Ontario in 1971, and his PhD from Oxford University in 1974 as a Rhodes Scholar at Jesus College.

Career Prior to joining Simon Fraser University in 1993, he worked at Dalhousie University (1974–91), Carnegie-Mellon (1980–82) and the University of Waterloo (1991–93). He was Shrum Professor of Science (1993–2003) and a Canada Research Chair in Information Technology (2001–08) at Simon Fraser University, where he was founding Director of the Centre for Experimental and Constructive Mathematics and developed the Inverse Symbolic Calculator together with his brother and Simon Plouffe. In 2004, he rejoined the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University as a Canada Research Chair in Distributed and Collaborative Research, cross-appointed in Mathematics, while preserving an adjunct appointment at Simon Fraser. Borwein was Governor at large of the Mathematical Association of America (2004–07), was president of the Canadian Mathematical Society (2000–02) and chair of (the Canadian National Science Library) NRC-CISTI Advisory Board (2000–2003). 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

External links Jonathan Borwein's homepage Jonathan Borwein memorial website Jonathan Borwein at the Mathematics Genealogy Project The experimental mathematics homepage and blog Researcher ID

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jonathan Borwein

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jonathan Borwein claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Jonathan Borwein before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Jonathan Borwein ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Jonathan Borwein

In research: Jonathan Borwein appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Jonathan Borwein in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Jonathan Borwein is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1951 births, 2016 deaths, Academic staff of Dalhousie University, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jonathan Borwein outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Jonathan Borwein in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Jonathan Borwein means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Jonathan Borwein out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Jonathan Borwein in simple terms?

Why does Jonathan Borwein matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Jonathan Borwein?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Jonathan Borwein.