From Alexandra Soskova
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Dear colleagues,
With deep sadness, we share with you the news that prof. Dimiter Skordev passed away on 29.12.2022 after a short illness.
He was one of the founders and longtime head of the Department of Mathematical Logic at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics at Sofia University.
Due to his skillful leadership through the years, it became possible to talk about the original Bulgarian school and traditions in Mathematical logic.
His outstanding abilities in mathematics were noticed early on, while he was an undergraduate student in the late 50s of the Bulgarian analyst Jaroslav Tagamlitski. Prof. Skordev received his habilitation when he was only 29, the youngest associate professor in the Bulgarian mathematical community of his time.
Although his Ph.D. dissertation was in functional analysis, the main research interests of prof. Skordev were in Computability theory. One of his most important contributions was the development of an original algebraic approach to Recursion theory, which evolved into his Theory of combinatorial iterative spaces. Later on, some of his students managed to apply this approach to questions in Computable structure theory. In the last 25 years, he worked actively in Computability and Complexity in analysis. Prof. Skordev is the author of close to a hundred scientific papers, two monographs, and fifty popular articles. The span of the topics of his publications is quite impressive, ranging from cycle detection in Prolog to bases of Boolean functions. His vision was decisive in building the scientific interests of generations of students, that worked under his supervision. He will also be remembered as a dedicated lecturer with a punctual style and taste.
Prof. Skordev will remain in our hearts as a mathematician of exceptional erudition and a man of integrity and impeccable morals.
On behalf of the Mathematical Logic Department at Sofia University,
Ivan Georgiev
Alexandra Soskova