The late Professor Karel Rektorys (February 4, 1923 -- December 10, 2004 (Q851663)

The life of the late Professor \textit{Karel Rektorys} spans from February 4, 1923, when he was born in Písek in South Bohemia, to December 10, 2004, when he died in Prague. He was the main editor of and contributor to the famous handbook ``Survey of Applicable Mathematics'' first in Czech, then in English, very popular in technical and applied sciences. Later, his ``Variational Methods in Mathematics, Science and Engineering'' appeared in Czech, and then was translated into English, German, and Russian. In this book, he built an accessible, but mathematically sound way to a rather demanding field of applied mathematics. Mathematicians and especially numerical analysts also know his monograph ``The Method of Discretization in Time and Partial Differential Equations''. \textit{Karel Rektorys} was both an excellent mathematician and an excellent teacher.