May God grant peace to the departed soul. I missed the chance to learn from him.
Ankit On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 1:03 AM Peter Stahlecker <peter.stahlec...@gmail.com> wrote: > A very graceful eulogy. > > Best regards, > > Peter Stahlecker > > > On Mon 11. Mar 2024 at 20:03, Aaron Meurer <asmeu...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> The passing of Kalevi Suominen truly a loss for the SymPy community. >> >> I had the honor of meeting Kalevi face to face once on a video call >> many years ago, but other than that, like everyone else, I primarily >> interacted with him online. Kalevi was always known in the SymPy >> community as the mathematics expert. As a retired professor of >> mathematics, his knowledge greatly assisted the development of some of >> the deep mathematical areas in SymPy, such as the polynomials and >> group theory modules. He was always available to give advice whenever >> I was unsure of some part of SymPy that was outside of my domain of >> expertise. I was always impressed by the breadth of his mathematical >> knowledge, as well as his skill as a Python programmer, a combination >> which can be rare to see. >> >> Yet despite being easily the most mathematically adept member of the >> community, he never lorded it over us, but always approached every >> interaction with kindness and humility. He considered himself to be an >> equal and as both a teacher and a learner. He can be a model for the >> sort of contributor and community member we should all strive to be, >> and our project was truly lucky to have him. >> >> I found some of the papers and books he wrote on Google Scholar >> >> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C32&q=Kalevi+Suominen&oq= >> and MathSciNet (but this requires a subscription to view, which I do >> not have) https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet/MRAuthorID/209375. He >> never mentioned this work, and it seems like most of it deals with >> technical mathematical areas which are not directly relevant to SymPy. >> >> I'll close on the following paragraphs from Kalevi himself, which I >> found in an old private email from 2018, on why he contributed to >> SymPy: >> >> > Being retired, I consider myself lucky as I can work with open code >> > on my own time with no pressure. It seems that many pensioners find >> > themselves a hobby. This is what suits me. >> > >> > I originally came across SymPy when searching for a mathematical >> > library for experimenting with some algorithms. It was (almost) >> > "love at first sight". It does not matter that the language, Python, >> > is not the most efficient one. It is easy to work with, and very much >> > readable. Readability is important to me as it helps in finding >> > errors. (That is what I had been doing for a great part of my >> > professional life.) It was also of importance to me that functions >> > would look familiar, sin(x), not Sin[x]. Instead of simply using >> > SymPy I finally found myself wanting to improve the library, >> > but that is another story. >> >> Aaron Meurer >> >> >> On Sun, Mar 10, 2024 at 10:31 AM Oscar Benjamin >> <oscar.j.benja...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > Hi all SymPy community, >> > >> > It is with great sadness that I bring the news that Kalevi Suominen >> > (@jksuom on GitHub) passed away on the 4th of March. Kalevi's son >> > Risto passed on this news to me and some others by email yesterday. >> > >> > I never met Kalevi in person but we had many conversations online over >> > many years. Kalevi was an outstanding SymPy contributor and was >> > involved with the project long before me and so there are others here >> > who have known him much longer than I have. Kalevi guided many SymPy >> > contributors and supervised many GSOC students over many years. >> > Looking in the git history his earliest commit was from almost exactly >> > 10 years ago. >> > >> > Personally I learnt a huge amount from Kalevi and I am very grateful >> > for the time he took to teach me and others and to guide the project >> > generally. Kalevi's expertise in many areas of Mathematics and across >> > the full depth of many parts of the SymPy codebase was unmatched >> > within the community. >> > >> > Interacting through GitHub I guess that many of us did not realise >> > that Kalevi's health was in decline. He continued to be involved >> > including most recently reviewing a pull request just 6 weeks ago. A >> > few weeks ago he sent me some files with what he was most recently >> > working on but was no longer able to finish. I will try to complete >> > that work and submit it as Kalevi's final pull request. >> > >> > Kalevi's passing is a huge loss to SymPy but I don't want to dwell on >> > that. Instead I invite those of us who have known Kalevi to share >> > their thoughts and memories here. >> > >> > Oscar >> > >> > -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "sympy" group. >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >> an email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> > To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAHVvXxTRWVQp_N_0%3DNnf-yBJwSu373sw-NB7UKuZCks2HTHGaA%40mail.gmail.com >> . >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "sympy" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAKgW%3D6%2Bn9hbbk2OsPqUfoJUUmrSbB1Znrx_42wgexghtYXMF6w%40mail.gmail.com >> . >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "sympy" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CABKqA0amdL6op4jTTPwsSAtJEzJ68HxmS%3DXvO3A-Dce5m%3Dv95A%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CABKqA0amdL6op4jTTPwsSAtJEzJ68HxmS%3DXvO3A-Dce5m%3Dv95A%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sympy" group. 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