The Story
Borwein was born into a family of academicians. His father headed the math department at the University of Western Ontario and his mother, now associate dean of medicine at UWO, completed a PhD in anatomy. He and his two siblings all majored in mathematics. Borwein studied at Oxford as an Ontario Rhodes Scholar. He became Professor of Mathematics at Dalhousie in 1984 and since 1993 has been the Shrum Chair of Science at Simon Fraser University. He co-founded and now directs the Centre for Experimental and Constructive Mathematics at SFU, recognized internationally for its work using computers to explore mathematical analysis.
Jon Borwein, his brother Peter Borwein, and David Bailey of NASA co-wrote the 1989 paper presenting the Quartically Convergent Algorithm, or how to compute one billion digits of pi. This paper was awarded the 1993 Chauvenet (the Mathematical Association of America's principal prize for a paper) and Hasse prizes for expository writing.
Borwein has co-authored six books including: Convex Analysis and Nonlinear Optimization (2000), Pi: A Source Book (1999), Pi and the AGM (1998) and A Dictionary of Real Numbers (1990). His now out of print Dictionary of Mathematics, co-written with Scottish philosopher E.J. Borowski, has been developed into a CD-ROM called The MathResource, winner of a computing education award in 1997.
Jonathan Borwein and his brother Peter co-edit the Canadian Mathematical Society/Springer-Verlag series of Books in Mathematics. Borwein is on the editorial board of several other mathematical journals including the Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society. He is also the President of the Canadian Mathematical Society.
His present research focus is on advanced collaborative environments for mathematics.
Sources: Centre for Experimental & Constructive Mathematics, SFU, Dr. Borwein's website; Image: SFU Math Department website.
Career ideas:
- Mathematicians
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The Person
- Birthdate
- May 20, 1951
- Birthplace
- St. Andrews, Scotland
- Date of Death
- August 2, 2016
- Place of Death
- Newcastle, Australia
- Residence
- Halifax, Nova Scotia
- Family Members
-
- Father: Dr. David Borwein (Professor Emeritus, UWO)
- Dr. Bessie Borwein (Associate Dean for Research, Faculty of Medicine, UWO)
- Brother: Professor Peter Borwein (SFU)
- Title
- Canada Research Chair
- Office
- Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax
- Status
- Working
- Degrees
-
- BA University of Western Ontario, 1971
- MSc Oxford University, 1972
- DPhil (mathematics) Oxford, 1971
- Awards
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- Fellow, Royal Society of Canada, 1994
- Academic of the Year Award (BC Confederation of University Faculty Associations) shared with P. Borwein, 1996
- <i>Doctorat Honoris Causa</i> (University of Limoges), 1999
- Mentor
- Father, David Borwein: what it means to have a passion for one's work as well as a pride in workmanship.
M. A. H. Dempster, Doctoral supervisor, how to have broad interests beyond mathematics.
- Last Updated
- August 31, 2016
- Popularity
- 39039
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