RIP thread

[patwynnfan]

British artist Sir Howard Hodgkin has died at the age of 84. The abstract painter and printmaker, who died in hospital in London on Thursday, was "a central figure in contemporary art for over half a century", Tate galleries said. Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota said he was "one of the great artists and colourists of his generation". Sir Howard won the Turner Prize in 1985 and represented the UK at the Venice Biennale the previous year. He was knighted in 1992. His work is held by major galleries and museums around the world, including the British Museum, Tate and MoMA in New York, and two exhibitions of his work are opening in the UK in the coming months. Sir Nicholas said: "His sensuous, intense paintings were infused with his love and understanding of late 19th-Century French painting, especially Degas, Vuillard and Bonnard, and by his feeling for the heat and colours of India, which he visited on many occasions. "His characteristic subject, the memory of a meeting or a conversation with a friend, resulted in paintings that radiate the emotions of life: love, anger, vanity, beauty and companionship." Sir Nicholas added that over the past 30 years, the artist's international standing has grown, with key exhibitions in Europe and the US. The Royal College of Art described Sir Howard as "one of the painters of our generation - who gave us emotion in the form of colour."

His death comes days before the National Portrait Gallery opens the first exhibition of portraits by the artist. Howard Hodgkin: Absent Friends features more than 50 works, dating from 1949 to the present. His portraits include those of fellow artists David Hockney, Patrick Caulfield and RB Kitaj. Works he produced on his latest visit to India are to go on display at The Hepworth Wakefield in Howard Hodgkin: Painting India, which opens in June. He also designed one of 12 posters for the London 2012 Games. His poster, called Swimming, featured a figure swimming through the water.

[patwynnfan]

Ronald Drever, one of the architects behind the first detection of gravitational waves, has died aged 85. The Scottish physicist passed away peacefully in Edinburgh on Tuesday, following a short but rapid deterioration in his health. Prof Drever is credited with doing some of the key early experimental work. The sensing in 2015 of ripples in the fabric of space-time generated by merging black holes is seen as one of the major breakthroughs of our time. His family announced the death with a short statement late on Wednesday: "We are extremely proud of Ronald and his scientific achievements; he was unique and unconventional but very caring with a strong sense of humour. He will be sadly missed by us all." Ronald Drever's role in the detection of gravitational waves was recognised in a stream of awards last year, including the Gruber, Breakthrough and Kavli prizes. These honours were shared with co-workers and American citizens Rai Weiss and Kip Thorne. The trio drove the establishment in the US of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). This institution, which has two labs in Washington State and Louisiana, has now made two separate detections of gravitational waves. James Hough worked as a student under Ronald Drever at Glasgow University. "His death is extremely sad - an end of an era," said Prof Hough. "He started the work in the UK on gravitational waves and then took his ideas across to Caltech where he built a 40m prototype laser interferometer. And I think without Ron, it would have been difficult for that initial proposal for LIGO to be funded."

Gravitational waves are a fundamental consequence of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. They describe the stretching and squeezing of space-time that occurs when massive objects accelerate. The signal is extremely subtle, however, even when truly colossal phenomena such as black holes are involved. Indeed, Einstein himself thought the effect would simply be too small to be registered by any technology he could envisage. But Drever, Weiss and Thorne pioneered the development of systems that would ultimately reach the required sensitivity. The LIGO labs bounce powerful beams of light down long vacuum tunnels to try to measure the passing waves' tiny disturbance. The aim is to identify deviations in the length of the experimental set-up equivalent to just fractions of the width of a hydrogen atom. And on 14 September 2015, after several years' refinement and a major upgrade, LIGO finally succeeded in detecting the warping of space coming from the infall of two black holes each weighing about 30 times the mass of our Sun. A second detection of a slightly smaller merger was then subsequently made on 26 December.

[Greenman]

Originally Posted by Oswald

Tony Davis who was the leader of the Liverpool-based folk group, 'The Spinners' has died aged 86.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituarie...ners-obituary/

I have a cassette recording of The Spinners with Roger McGough the Liverpool poet appearing on a programme on Radio2 and they sing Liverpool Lou, a favourite tune of theirs. I didn't even know he was ill.

As a small aside about Don Knotts he along with Dick van Dyke had the distinction of appearing in cartoon form for an episode of Scooby-Doo in their Mysteries series of mini-films in the 70s and I also remember him in a fairly dire(well I did at the time) Disney comedy at that time called 'The Apple Dumpling Gang'

[diamelsx]

George A. Olah, winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his groundbreaking research into the unstable carbon molecules known as carbocations, has died at age 89.

Olah died Wednesday at his Beverly Hills home, according to the University of Southern California's Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute, of which he was founding director. No cause of death was provided.

Source

[jokerman]

It's just been announced that former formula one racing driver John Surtees has died at the age of 83. He is the only man to have won both the Grand Prix world title & Motor Cycling world title.
A family statement has said that he had an existing respiratory condition.

[westernlover47]

doubt if any of the F1 guys of today would even consider replicating what he did
RIP to a genuine motor racing world champion

[Hikarufan]

John was a legend in his own life time. No many of us can say that. 32 wins from 39 starts in 350CC and 500CC from 1958 to 1960, then jumps into Grand Prix and wins the '64 world championship.

We'll never see that again.

RIP

[diamelsx]

Robert James Waller, the author best known for his 1992 novel The Bridges of Madison County, has died. He was 77 years old.

According to Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency, Waller died either Thursday or early Friday in Texas. Agent Lucy Childs told The Associated Press that she did not know the cause, but was aware that the author had been ill.

Source

[gedly]

The Italian Job and Footballers' Wives actor John Forgeham dies aged 75.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrit...ice=responsive

[Greenman]

I liked John Forgeham but many people wouldn't remember him in The Italian Job. He was in loads of things mostly either playing a Northern type or a villain as he looked pretty hardcase.