Alexander Ollongren | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Alexander Ollongren, by Janus Nuiten | |
| Born | (1928-11-09)9 November 1928 |
| Died | 25 March 2025(2025-03-25) (aged 96) Oegstgeest, Netherlands |
| Alma mater | Leiden University |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2, includingKajsa Ollongren |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics,physics andastronomy |
| Institutions | |
JonkheerAlexander Ollongren (9 November 1928 – 25 March 2025) was a Dutch scientist and academic who was professor emeritus atLeiden University. He served on the Advisory Council ofMETI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence).
Alexander Ollongren was born on 9 November 1928, on a coffeeplantation inKepahiang, in the southwestern part ofSumatra,Netherlands East Indies. His father, Alexander Ollongren (1901–1989), was born inKyiv inKiev Governorate, and was of mixedFinnish and Swedish descent. He was a member of the Finnish noble familyÅllongren. His mother, Selma Hedwig Adèle Jaeger (1901–2000), was ofDutch and German heritage. The family moved toJava in early 1932 and lived inYogyakarta, while the Japanese army occupied theNetherlands East Indies in 1942. In 1945, the family was interned at various Japanese internment camps, most notablyFort van den Bosch in the modernNgawi Regency.
After the war, Ollongren was further educated inJakarta. The family stayed in Australia for six months in order to recuperate and later moved to the Netherlands where Ollongren decided to enroll inLeiden University.
His education atLeiden University started withundergraduate andgraduate studies inmathematics,Hamiltonian mechanics,physics, andastronomy, after which he gained hisMSc degree in 1955. After completing his master's degree, he served almost two years in the military. In 1958, he started his doctoral research ingalactic astronomy, supervised byJan H. Oort andHendrik C. van de Hulst of the Astronomical Department at Leiden. His research topic was the three-dimensional orbital motions of stars in the galaxy.[1] Characterizing orbital stellar motion in a galaxy could not be done analytically, so a number of sample orbits had to be computed using the rudimentary computers of the time. In cooperation with astronomer Ingrid Torgård (1918–2001) of Lund Observatory in Sweden, the then famous and extremely fast electronic computerBESK in Stockholm was programmed to do the necessary computing. The analysis of the problem, together with the computational results and Ollongren's interpretation of them, earned him aPhD degree in astronomy from Leiden University in 1962.
In 1961, the Leiden University Council decided that the university was in need of an institute to operate and manage a fastelectronic computer in order to meet computing demands from a wide range of institutions. Thus, the Central Computing Institute was created. A modern, transistorized computer, theX1, built by the Dutch companyElectrologica, was installed and Ollongren was appointed Acting Director of the Institute. A year later he became Associate Director of the university computer centre. As demands for computing services were increasing in the university, it became evident that the central computing institute would need more powerful computer facilities. After the appointment ofGuus Zoutendijk, mathematician, as General Director in 1964, switching to an IBM mainframe was seriously considered and eventually effected. In the wake of the new orientation, Ollongren was granted a leave of absence.[citation needed]
After being invited byDirk Brouwer, for approximately a year and a half, between 1965 and 1967, Ollongren was a postdoctoral visiting research member in celestial mechanics and lecturer in mathematics at the well-known Research Center of Celestial Mechanics atYale University, New Haven, Connecticut. While in the United States, he became well acquainted with the programming and use of modern, large-sizeIBM computing equipment. He then returned to the newly created Department of Applied Mathematics at Leiden University, and in 1968, became a lecturer in numerical mathematics and computer science. A year later, he became an Associate Professor in theoretical computer science, covering aspects ofprogramming languages. In 1971, he was granted another leave of absence, enabling him to accept the position of Visiting Research Member at the IBM Research Laboratory in Vienna, Austria for three months.
In 1980, Ollongren became a Full Professor ofcomputer science at Leiden, specializing in the semantics of programming languages. That same year, he spent a half year sabbatical at the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence ofLinköping University in Sweden. Several years later, the computer science section of the department became the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS).
Ollongren retired at the age of 65. He became Emeritus Professor of Leiden University in November 1993, delivering the public lecture called Vix Famulis Audenda Parat, including an invited speech by ‘Alan Turing’, which was enacted byGeorge K. Miley, a university astronomer, in the University’s auditorium.
Ollongren was a member of several societies of computer science; astronomy, including theInternational Astronomical Union; and astronautics.[citation needed]
After his retirement, he became interested in the academic debate on theSearch for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI), within the International Astronautical Academy.[2] In particular, he wrote several studies in the field of interstellar communication with extraterrestrials.[3][4][5][6] He also developed a new version ofLincos, a universally comprehensible language based on logic for the purpose ofcommunication with extraterrestrial intelligence.[7][8][9][10] His major contribution to this field was his book,Astrolinguistics, that was published by Springer in 2013.[11]
He married Gunvor Ulla Marie Lundgren, a Swede, in 1965 in Jönköping. Their children areKarin Hildur (Kajsa) Ollongren, a noted liberal politician and government minister, born in 1967, and Peter Gunnar Ollongren, born in 1970.
Ollongren died inOegstgeest on 25 March 2025, at the age of 96.[12]
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