Our Honorary President, WILLIAM S. HUFF passed away, but he remains with us FOREVER. William left us on a very symmetric day (21.01.21) and we will always be grateful and remember his contributions to symmetry studies.
Ted Goranson wrote:
“William exemplified the soul of the Society, deeply curious and interdisciplinary. He attended all of our Congresses from 1989 until the last, in 2019.
Lessons I learned from him:
– Space is complex but full of harmony of quite unusual kinds. I believe the solution to some fundamental problems reside in his vision.
– He always bent into a speaker’s mental space to glean the wisdom that often is there. This is the most fundamental of generosities.
– Though he presented lectures at every conference, sometimes twice, he never gave the same presentation twice. They differed in fundamental ways and always displayed genius. I try to emulate this.
I hope he was not uncomfortable at the end.”
In Kanazawa, Lynn Arnold and Caspar Schwabe presented the “William S. Huff Lectures”, and both of them were invited to SIS-Symmetry by William personally. Then, Werner van Hoeydonck delivered the extra surprise for him with artworks. In fact, Werner continued William’s teaching methods at the Technical University of Vienna.
Those who attended the 11th Congress in Kanazawa, Japan, may remember that William joined us during the “William S. Huff Lectures” via skype. Let us hope that William will join us during the “William S. Huff Memorial Lectures” in the 12th Congress to be held in Porto (July 2022) from the sky.
Dénes Nagy, President of SIS-Symmetry (International Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Symmetry).