astronomy

Michel Bercovier

Michel Bercovier 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 Michel Bercovier rather than just read about it. In short: Michel Bercovier (Hebrew: מישל ברקוביאר; born: 10 September 1941) is a French-Israeli professor (emeritus) of Scientific Computing and Computer Aided Design (CAD) in The Rachel and Selim Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Bercovier is also the head of the School of Computer Science at the Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Michel Bercovier (Hebrew: מישל ברקוביאר; born: 10 September 1941) is a French-Israeli professor (emeritus) of Scientific Computing and Computer Aided Design (CAD) in The Rachel and Selim Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Bercovier is also the head of the School of Computer Science at the Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem.

Early life and education Michel Bercovier was born in Lyon, France. He received his BSc in mathematics from Paris University in 1964. He was from 1964 to 1965 vice president of Union of French Jewish Students and co-principal editor of its magazine Kadima. During the years 1965-67 he served in the French Army. He earned his D. Es Sc. in 1976 at the Faculté des Sciences de Rouen. Bercovier authored the thesis Régularisation duale des problèmes variationnels mixtes (Dual regularization of mixed variational problems), under the supervision of Jacques-Louis Lions. He belongs to the second generation of Lions' students.

Career Bercovier was an assistant professor at the University of Rouen (1969 - 1972) where he created the Computation Center. He emigrated to Israel in 1973 and was director of applications and services at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Computer Center (1973 - 1976). He joined the School of Applied Sciences of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a Lecturer in 1977, becoming an associate professor in 1983, and moved to its Institute of Computer Science in 1986. From 1997 until 2006 he held the Bertold Badler Chair of Computer Science as a full professor. In 1996-1998 Bercovier set up the Computer Science department of a new university at Paris-La Defense (Pôle universitaire Léonard de Vinci). From 1999 to 2007 he was in charge of the W3C office in Israel, and thus very active in the development of the Internet.

Retirement He retired from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2007 as an emeritus professor. From 2010 he is also a professor and head of the school of Computer Science at the Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem. Bercovier has advised more than 30 M.Sc. and 16 Ph.D. students.

Research Professor Bercovier's research work focuses on Computer Aided Design and in Scientific Computation. He developed new Finite Element Methods for fluid flows and incompressible materials based on penalty and reduced integration methods that are universally implemented.Together with Pironneau, Olivier he proved the optimality of the Hood Taylor finite element for incompressible fluids. He has made contributions to the integration of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Analysis, developed new methods in surface design, integrated optimal control methods in CAD and cloth simulation for animation. He has been involved in multidisciplinary research, teaming with surgeons, biologists and pharmacologists (artificial heart valve modeling, Ca+ discharge in axons, keratotomical surgery, drug release models). Bercovier carries joint research with INRIA, Pierre and Marie Curie University, EPFL, IMATI-Pavia, Institute of Applied Geometry (Johannes Kepler University Linz) and MIT, among others. He is currently involved in several aspects of Isogeometric Analysis, such as smooth surfaces on arbitrary meshes and Domain Decomposition methods on arbitrarily overlapping domains. On the former subject, his book with Tanya Matskevitch is at the origin of numerous research on smooth surfaces over arbitrary quadrilateral meshes.

Professional experience Parallel to his academic work, Bercovier has been involved in industrial research: he was Chief Consultant for Kleber and Michelin (1972 – 1985), Hutchinson (1990-2017), Pechiney (1992-2017), L’Oréal (1996-2013). He also contributed to the creation of several Hi-Tech companies: FDI (now part of Ansys, a US company, was based on his research, as was Bercom, a leading CAD/CAE Israeli firm. Bercovier was also the chairman of Aleph Yissum (now Ex Libris) in the years 1986 - 1996, and was active in turning the small start up into the leader in computer systems for libraries. He contributed to the creation of the R&D team of Visiowave (Lausanne), which was acquired by General Electric. He is on the editorial board of several scientific journals. He is a member of SIAM, European Mathematical Society and ACM, on the board of SIA (Automotive Engineering Society in France) and ECCOMAS. He was a visiting fellow for long periods at IBM, Digital Equipment Corporation and Matra. He was a member of the scientific council of AMIES, Agency for Interaction in Mathematics with Business and Society, a founding member of the Israel Association for Computational Methods in Mechanics and co-founder and chairman of the World User Association in CFD (Computational fluid dynamics).

Honors and awards Chevalier des Palmes Académiques (1986) Conseiller du Commerce Extérieur(fr) (1993, renewed 1995)

Publications Bercovier is the author of over 80 papers and 3 books.

Books Topics in computer aided geometric design. Barnhill RF., Bercovier M., Boehm W., Capasso V., eds Symposium on topics in computer aided geometric design held in Erice 1990 RAIRO MMAN 26, Duno Paris, 1992. Domain Decomposition Methods in Science and Engineering 18, Editor, With M.J Gander, Kornhubler and O Widlund, Springer, 2008. (with Tanya Matskevich) Smooth Bézier Surfaces over Arbitrary Quadrilateral Meshes Lectures Notes of the UMI, 22, Springer, 2017.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Michel Bercovier

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Michel Bercovier 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 Michel Bercovier 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 Michel Bercovier 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 Michel Bercovier

In research: Michel Bercovier 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 Michel Bercovier 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: Michel Bercovier is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1941 births, Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Applied mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Michel Bercovier 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 Michel Bercovier in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Michel Bercovier 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 Michel Bercovier out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Michel Bercovier in simple terms?

Why does Michel Bercovier 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 Michel Bercovier?

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 Michel Bercovier.