Manuel Bronstein
Vladimir Bondarenko
http://www-sop.inria.fr/cafe/Manuel.Bronstein/bronstein-eng.html
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http://groups.google.com/group/sci.math.symbolic/msg/11309ab11419eec8?hl=en&
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I am fated to argue to very last day,
Till I yell myself hoarse, till I'm wasted away.
I am fated to prove, going out of my way,
That this isn't quite right and that's gone astray,
That Christ was belied by unproved hearsay,
That the tombstone has not yet converted to clay,
And life under Tartars was driven to bay,
Three hard ages of misery, plight and dismay,
Good intentions, rebellions, entreaties to slay,
Devastation and robbery day after day,
They may not understand right away what I say,
I will say it again, like a fool, come what may...
Though it's not to the point and not urgent to-day:
"All the vanities are void and vain anyway".
I am sorry, I can't drain the cup on the run,
I could share it with all, still it cannot be done.
Shall I throw it in the face of my foe, wicked man?
No, I cannot just do it, I wonder who can.
Onto spinning smooth slippery ring I am thrown,
I'm keeping my balance and holding my own.
Shall I throw off my burden? It cannot be done.
I would rather be patient and wait for someone,
I will hand it to him and withdraw from the run.
On a dark pitch-black night to the wide open lawn,
Having given the cup to my friend, - I'll be gone.
Will he drain it or not? - that will never be known.
I am now in the meadow amongst the withdrawn,
But about the cup I won't tell anyone,
I had better keep mum for if I make it known
I presume, I'll be trampled upon on the lawn.
I am doing my best for your sake, as you see,
Maybe, some of you will put a candle for me,
For my nerves that squeeze out a shout from me,
For the manner in which I make fun of all thee.
If they promise me wonders and gardens for free,
If they threaten with darkness - I shall not agree!
If I slacken my nerves I shall sing out of key,
I would rather get strained to the proper degree!
I had better carouse and go on a spree!
I shall crush what I've done and what's laid up for me!
I would rather root out my best song than be
Whirling round and sliding like dust over me..
If I does come to draining the cup one fine day,
If the lyric and melody sound O.K.,
If I manage to get them to see it my way,-
Saying: "All is not vanity" I'll go away!
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http://groups.google.com/group/sci.math.symbolic/msg/ed3b3fb6a2c3e4ba?hl=en&
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http://www-sop.inria.fr/cafe/Cafe2006eng.html
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Vladimir Bondarenko
http://www-sop.inria.fr/cafe/Manuel.Bronstein/bronstein.jpg
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http://www-sop.inria.fr/cafe/Manuel.Bronstein/bronstein-eng.html
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http://www-sop.inria.fr/cafe/Cafe2006eng.html
-- Sergei Abramov (Computing Center of the Russian
Academy of Sciences)
Linear functional systems in the work of Manuel Bronstein
-- Mark van Hoeij (Florida State Univertsity)
Factorization and hypergeometric solutions of linear
recurrence systems
-- Erich Kaltofen (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology/North Carolina State University),
Enabling Breakthrough: Manuel Bronstein's impact on
the infrastructure of symbolic computation research
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http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/b/Bronstein:Manuel.html
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http://www.mail-archive.com/axiom...@nongnu.org/msg00014.html
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http://www.ccas.ru/sabramov/ps/PCS56.pdf
Sergey Abramov Computing Center, Russian Academy of Sciences
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On June 6, 2005, Manuel Bronstein - a prominent scientist
whose contribution to computer algebra and many other areas
of mathematics and computer science can hardly be overestimated
- died of a heart attack. He was only forty-one.
A truly talented man, who was endlessly devoted to science, has
passed away.
Manuel worked with all his strength, enthusiastically, and was
always researching several difficult problems simultaneously.
Everyone who knew him remembers that he was witty, extremely
keen in intellect, and cheerful. When not working, he could
take part in discussions on diverse topics, and his partners
admired him for his sudden impromptus, jokes, felicitous remarks,
and unexpected viewpoints on the many little nothings of life.
Manuel was born on August 28, 1963, near Paris. His father was a
physician, and his mother was a sculptor. Having graduated from
school in France, he entered Berkeley University (USA, CA),
where, in 1987, he defended his PhD thesis under the supervision
of Professor M. Rosenlicht. For three years, he worked at the IBM
Research Center; then, from 1990 to 1997, in the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology (ETH), and since 1997, in France, in the
French National Institute for Research in Informatics and
Automation (INRIA) in Sophia Antipolis.
The dissertation defended at Berkeley was devoted to a very
difficult problem related to symbolic integration (or integration
in finite terms). Although the theory of integration was
developed by R. Risch (another Ph.D. student of Rosenlicht) who
presented in 1968 an algorithm for integration of elementary
functions, it turned out that this algorithm was far from
effective. Manuel significantly improved it (in particular, by
generalizing B. Trager's algorithm for algebraic functions to an
algorithm for the mixed case of elementary functions). While
working for IBM, he implemented the integration algorithm in
the Axiom system. At that time, this was the most powerful
program for integration of functions. Manuel presented results
of his studies in a large article published in 1990 in the
Journal of Symbolic Computation.
http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/FrontPage
Later, he intended to write a monograph in two volumes devoted to
all aspects of symbolic integration. The first volume was written
and went through two editions at the Springer publishing house in
1997 and 2004. The second volume remained uncompleted.
It was typical of Manuel to concentrate on urgent difficult
problems. After the problem of integration, he studied the
problem of searching for closed-form solutions to ordinary
linear differential equations. In particular, in 1992, he
designed a rather general algorithm for finding solutions
in the field generated by the coefficients of the equation.
In construction of these solutions, one usually proceeds from
a tower of extensions of the basic field. However, the key point
is the possibility of finding solutions in the basic field, which
contains the coefficients. This demonstrates the exceptional value
of this result by Manuel. Many problems of differential algebra
have analogues in the difference case. It is also well known that,
as a rule, these difference analogues are much more difficult to
solve. Nevertheless, in 2000, Manuel developed an algorithm for
searching for solutions in the field of coefficients for the case
of difference equations. Moreover, he constructed a universal
general algorithm that covers differential, difference, and
q-difference equations as special cases. This universality was
attained by considering the problem on the level of noncommutative
Ore polynomials. At the same time, he significantly advanced in
the development of the theory of unimonomial field extensions,
whose foundations were laid by M. Karr in the early 1980s. These
results allowed a number of wellknown algorithms for searching
for various solutions of linear ordinary equations with polynomial
coefficients to be generalized to much more complicated situations.
As for the Ore polynomials, it should be emphasized that the
very idea of using them in computer algebra was first proposed
by Manuel (together with M. Petkov ek) in a paper published in
Programming and Computer Software in 1994. This idea was important
not only from the theoretical standpoint; it also demonstrated the
possibility of designing universal computer programs adjustable to
the differential, difference, and some other cases. This approach
is widely used nowadays by developers of computer algebra
algorithms and systems.
The aforementioned paper devoted to this universal approach is
not the only publication by Manuel in Programming and Computer
Software. In 1992, he published a survey of methods for solving
ordinary differential equations and integration in this journal.
With the help of this survey, many specialists actively working
in related scientific areas managed to penetrate into this
involved subject. In 1993, Manuel was a co-editor of a special
issue of Programming and Computer Software devoted to computer
algebra.
Far from intending to give here a complete survey of Manuel's
results, we mention only that he obtained many profound and
valuable results not only on integration & ordinary differential
and difference equations, but also on special functions, partial
differential equations, operator factorization, and reducibility
of systems of equations to special forms. He also published nice
works on linear algebra, algebraic geometry, etc.
Manuel was a brilliant programmer. He artistically implemented
all his algorithms in a number of computer algebra systems.
Recently, he actively worked on the Aldor system and wrote
a family of computer-algebraic libraries for it, namely, the
libaldor and Algebra libraries (which provide the user with basic
data structures and their operation procedures that are necessary
for applications of computer algebra) and the Sum it library
(which contains efficient programs implementing complex modern
algorithms for transforming and solving linear ordinary
differential and difference equations). For the Sum it library,
he also developed two interactive interfaces bernina and shasta,
which made the functions of this library available from other
computer algebra systems. These libraries and interactive
interfaces are high-quality tools that are widely used in many
research centers.
http://www-sop.inria.fr/cafe/Manuel.Bronstein/libaldor/index.html
http://www-sop.inria.fr/cafe/Manuel.Bronstein/sumit/bernina.html
http://www-sop.inria.fr/cafe/Manuel.Bronstein/sumit/shasta.html
As noted earlier, since 1997, Manuel worked at INRIA. At this
institute (his last place of work), he headed a research group
consisting of first-rate specialists. Each of them worked on his
or her particular scientific problem, and witnesses of his
discussions with collaborators were amazed by a deep insight of
Manuel into all these problems and by his ability to easily
pass in these discussions from one problem to another. The
intellectual virtuosity that he demonstrated in these discussions
was magnificent.
Manuel was a member of Editorial Boards of some leading journals
and scientific series, for instance, the Journal of Symbolic
Computation and the series Algorithms and Computation in
Mathematics. He was a member of the program and organizing
committees of several respected conferences and often chaired
these committees. This particularly relates to the annual
international ISSAC conference. He was also a vice president of
SIGSAM, the international group on symbolic and algebraic
manipulation. In this role, he proposed and realized many fruitful
ideas. For instance, for the ISSAC'05 conference, which was held
in July of 2005, he had prepared a CD that contained not only
texts of all the talks given at the conference but also some new
software and other information valuable for everyone interested
in computer algebra and its applications. Unfortunately, he was
not to take part in that conference. That CD was distributed to
all the participants of the conference and will remind them of
Manuel.
http://authors.elsevier.com/JournalDetail.html?PubID=622902&Precis=DESC
He participated fruitfully in international research projects.
For instance, in the 1990s, he was one of the leaders of the
European projects Cathode 1 and Cathode 2 devoted to computer-
algebraic methods for solving ordinary differential equations.
During the last ten years, Manuel co-headed some projects
involving Russian scientists, namely, "Computer algebra and
linear functional equations" (RFBR-INTAS), "Direct computer-
algebraic methods for explicit solution of systems of linear
functional equations" (French-Russian Lyapunov Center), and
"Computer algebra and (q-) hypergeometric terms" (Eco-Net
program of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs). His last
voyage abroad was to Russia on May 15-19, 2005, within the
framework of the Eco-Net program.
It should be noted that Manuel was particularly interested in
Russia and events there. It is appropriate to mention that his
father's family had Russian roots and Manuel himself had chosen
Russian as the foreign language to study at high school (he
told that, on the final exam, he had to read a passage from
"Second Lieutenant Kizhe" by Yu.N. Tynyanov). Later, he read
scientific journals in Russian and even translated some papers.
Functional Asymmetry of the Brain and Ignoring of the Environment
http://www.springerlink.com/index/KXT30733592JH138.pdf
And when he met his future wife Karola in Leipzig in 1990, the
Russian language helped them to communicate, although it was
not a native tongue to either. Remembering the joint work with
Manuel, we would like to mention his remarkable ability to grasp
instantly mathematical ideas and the extraordinary mental agility,
which followed from his acute analytical sense. If a problem that
arose in a discussion at the blackboard or was proposed by
somebody was of interest to Manuel, he, as a rule, immediately
proposed several approaches to solving it, including quite unusual
and promising ones. Having outlined these approaches, he
immediately started to develop them in detail. He made some
calculations on the blackboard so fast that, sometimes, it was
hard to follow them. As a result of such an improvisation, either
the question was completely answered or real obstacles for further
investigation were found. And Manuel often performed such analyses
without any intention to be a coauthor of the work. He was a
benevolent man and readily gave detailed answers to questions of
people whom he scarcely knew, who asked him for a consultation or
advice during a break of a conference.
Of course, Manuel's scientific interests were not restricted to
only difficult classical problems. Computer algebra is known to
have at its disposal complete algorithms for solving a number of
such problems. However, the computational complexity of these
algorithms is very high, and they are hard to implement. Manuel
was interested in consideration of special cases of these problems
and in simplifying and refining algorithms by using heuristics
and other methods. The results of his work in this area included
a new version of the algorithm of parallel integration (the first
versions of the algorithm of parallel integration were proposed
in the late 1970s and early 1980s by A. Norman, P. Moore, and
J. Davenport; here, the term "parallel" does not relate to
multiprocessor execution, and Manuel suggested replacing this
term with "flat integration"). In general, this algorithm is not
as powerful as the complete version of the Risch-Bronstein
algorithm for symbolic integration; however, it may be
implemented in just a hundred lines of code. A note on the
algorithm of parallel integration is published in this issue
of Programming and Computer Software.
This note is an extended abstract of Manuel's talk at the joint
seminar on computer algebra of the MSU and JINR (Joint Institute
for Nuclear Research) in Dubna on May 18, 2005. It was submitted
for publication in Programming and Computer Software on June 3,
three days before his death overtook him outside his hometown,
in Montpellier.
He went there for a few days to discuss with biologists the
possibility of describing some biological models by recurrence
relations of a special form. Manuel was going to try to solve
these relations using an original approach he was working on
in his last days. The stock of his ideas and intentions seemed
to be endless...
Providing for his large family (he was the father of six
children), he was always ready to support his friends,
colleagues, and associates, and helped them any time when
he felt that they needed his assistance or sympathy. He
never stopped being friendly to people around him.
Manuel was just as benevolent and kind as he was outstandingly
talented. His name and his accomplishments in computer algebra
have already found their high place in sciences.
His death is a grievous, irreplaceable loss for everyone who
was lucky to work with him or just be acquainted with him.
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http://www.astav.net/manu/Manuel_Bronstein_Fund.htm
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http://www-sop.inria.fr/cafe/Cafe2006eng.html
-- Barry Trager (IBM Research),
Algebraic functions and differential equations
-- Felix Ulmer (Universite Rennes I),
Manuel Bronstein's contribution to closed form
solutions of linear differential equations
-- Stephen Watt (ORCCA, University of Western Ontario)
Using tomorrow's technology today: Manuel Bronstein's
work with computer algebra software
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http://www-sop.inria.fr/cafe/Manuel.Bronstein/sumit/shasta.gif
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http://www-sop.inria.fr/cafe/Manuel.Bronstein/bronstein-eng.html
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http://www-sop.inria.fr/cafe/Manuel.Bronstein/sumit/bernina.gif
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Vladimir Bondarenko
The squirrel in a squirrel cage,
is thrilling poor heart.
I'm leaving you my love the Stage.
From you my love I'll part.
I'm grateful you for joys and slings,
for every man and rhyme.
You seated me upon your wings
that most of people called time.
With all my soul, I've sung my bill,
performed my every clause.
I'm falling into softest still,
like into God's applause.
But in the land of night and God,
I'll dream of You a lot -
an egg yolk's dormant dimmy spot
that will become a bird.
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Vladimir Bondarenko
Vladimir Vysotsky [Tr by Eugenia Weinstein]
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Walker
Tightrope
The
He could neither for rank nor for height hope...
Not for fame and not for payment
In his odd style, without a swerve
All through life he's been walking a tightrope,
Not the pavement, not the pavement -
A tightrope strained like a nerve.
Look. No safety net.
He is moving across...
Half a tilt to the left -
He will fall, he is lost!
Half a tilt to the right -
He is doomed anyway...
But he clearly needs, needs to make it today
Through these four quarters of the way.
Lights were throwing off-step and would pierce
Worse than laurels, sharp and nimble.
The trumpet was going insane...
Shouts "Bravo!" kept blasting his ears,
And the cymbal, and the cymbal
Was hammering into his brain!
Look. No safety net.
He is moving across...
Half a tilt to the left -
He will fall, he is lost!
Half a tilt to the right -
He is doomed anyway...
But he now has less, less to walk, less to sway -
Already three quarters of the way.
"Ah! How awful, how lovely, how daring!
Death-defying! Just three minutes!"
Mouths open in wait and in fright,
>From the pit were gloomily staring
Tiny midgets... Tiny midgets
They appeared to him from his height.
Look - no safety net.
He is moving across...
Half a tilt to the left -
He will fall, he is lost!
Half a tilt to the right -
He is doomed anyway...
But calm down! He's now to balance his weight
For just two quarters of the way...
He would mock fleeting fame, but aspired
To be first, with all his might strove -
Try breaking his kind into crumbs!
It was our nerves, not the wire,
Not the tightrope, not the tightrope,
That he walked to the roll of the drums!
Look, - no safety net!
He is moving across...
Half a tilt to the left -
He will fall! He is lost!
Half a tilt to the right -
He is doomed anyway...
But be still!
There
remains
at
the
end
of
the
day
No
more
than
a
quarter
of
the
way!
Screamed the tamer, and animals scurried,
To the stretcher their paws thrust...
But the verdict is simple and blunt:
Whether he was assured or worried,
Into sawdust, into sawdust
He spilled his vexation and blood.
Someone else takes his route
Now, without a net.
Slender cord underfoot...
He will fall, he'll regret...
Leaning right, leaning left -
He is doomed anyway...
But he too, for some reason, must make it today
Through all four quarters of the way.
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http://maple.bug-list.org/TheTightropeWalker.vqf
http://www.sonicspot.com/soundvqplayer/vqp251b1e.exe
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