In memoriam Ton Langendorff
On October 18, 2023, Ton Langendorff has passed away.
Ton studied sociology at the University of Amsterdam. He is well known in the mathematical community for his work for the 3TU Applied Mathematics Institute. This institute, also called 3TU.AMI, started as joint initiative of the three Mathematics departments of 3TU's (TU Delft, TU Eindhoven and University of Twente). From the start, Ton was the manager (secretaris) of this institute. The first important activity was a joint event in the Dutch Embassy in Berlin to start a collaboration with Matheon and various industries on Optimization of energy networks. Matheon was a collaboration of the three universities and two research institutes in Berlin. Matheon gives a lot of inspiration how to organize 3TU.AMI. Ton was full of energy to make 3TU.AMI a success. He organised many meetings with Dutch industries and research institutes. Already in the beginning he also connected Wageningen and Groningen University to 3TU.AMI. Nowadays 3TU.AMI is known as 4TU.AMI. Due to his work 4TU.AMI is an important institute in the Netherlands and well known by the (industrial) mathematical community. Finally, he has written a book about mathematicians entitled "Denken wiskundigen wel zo exact?".
Ton was also the first secretary of the committee for Innovation within the Dutch Platform for Mathematics (PWN). He played a major role, was very active, and one of his main contributions was the book ''Succesformules'' written by Ionica Smeets and Bennie Mols, for which Ton was the driving force. His enthusiasm and work attitude were very much appreciated by the board and director of PWN.
Ton also played a role in the European Service Network of Mathematics for Industry and Innovation (EU-MATHS-IN) which was founded in 2013. Here he was the Dutch representative in the European project MSO4SC and traveled to many colleagues in Europe.
