The working group TGI grieves for Manfred Kudlek.
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Obituary
Prof. Dr. Manfred Kudlek, has left us this week. He passed away on June 18, 2012 when participating the Turing Centenary Conference in Cambridge, England, suddenly and unexpected.Manfred has been a Professor in the field of theoretical informatics. His research has focused on formal languages, calendar systems and linguistics. After his Abitur at a Hamburg secondary-school he finished his studies in physics by a diploma (Thesis: Streutheorie für relativistische Teilchen mit Spin 1/2) und a PhD-thesis (Das relativistische Dreikörperproblem mit gebundenen Zuständen). After some positions in linguistics and physics he started his teaching and research in informatics as a lecturer (1970) and since 1977 as a professor at the university of Hamburg. In teaching he covered almost all areas of theoretical informatics. His list of publications shows more than 200 entries. His focus in research were the theory of minimal Turing machines, Lindenmayer systems, non-standard Chomsky grammars, calculi for concurrent systems and Petri nets.
A number of his publications did appear together with foreign colleagues, in particular from eastern Europe, which he frequently visited and also invited them to come to Hamburg. In 2002 he became a honorary professor at the university of Iaşi, Romania. His distinct preference for traveling and scientific meetings is also reflected by the numerous reports from such conferences, much of them published in the EATCS-bulletin. Manfred had a very special relation to EATCS. He was the only person who has attended all ICALPs. It is even mentioned in the "Guidelines for ICALP Conferences" that the conference has to cover Manfred's registration fee.He pleased the EATCS community by his pictures,his reports about conferences and by the representation of buttons during each general assembly to the most successful ICALP authors.These activities did not stop with his retirement as a professor in 2005. Therefore and due to his likable personalty and permanent readiness to help others we will miss him. On September 25 he would have reached the age of 72.
A special volume of Fundamenta Informaticae is dedicated to the memory of Manfred Kudlek (Volume 129, Number 1-2 / 2014). [Rüdiger Valk]
Obituary for Manfred Kudlek, read at the closing ceremony for CiE 2012 in Cambridge, June 23 2012. (by Peter van Emde Boas)
Emails should be sent to: kudlek+obituary@informatik.uni-hamburg.de
Letter of condolence could be sent to the following adress:
Familie Kudlek,
c/o Fachbereich Informatik
Vogt-Kölln-Straße 30
22527 Hamburg
Germany
