O Professor Clóvis Gonzaga foi meu orientador de mestrado, membro da minha banca de doutorado e foi um exemplo acadêmico e de vida para mim. Clóvis me ensinou a geometrizar ideias centrais em Matemática e me dizia que bons pesquisadores deviam buscar por árvores que dariam muitos frutos e não apenas colher frutos restantes em árvores onde já havia sido feita colheita. Serei grato para sempre por seus ensinamentos e finas conversas.

Speech in hornor of Prof. Gonzaga at Clovisfest 2014 (Florianópolis)

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, my name is Roger Behling, and I’m very happy to be here tonight on behalf of my academic brothers and sisters honoring our eternal adviser Professor Clóvis Gonzaga. I have prepared a brief and tiny speech entitled “The blackbox optimization of Clóvis Gonzaga”. As you can see, my assistant is holding an actual blackbox, but don’t get me wrong, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not a magician, because if I were, I would be able to take out a subgradient from this oracle, and this is a pretty tough task for a mathematician, isn’t it? So, instead of getting a subgradient, a bunny or whatever, I have selected a few items, five items, related and connected to my personal learning journey with Clóvis.

  1. PAINTING BY VERMEER: The very first item comes with two provocative questions: What is Mathematics? What is a Theorem? Let’s see what Clóvis says. A Painting by Vermeer, his favorite painter. This is Mathematics: beauty, perfection, mystery. And if the painting is Mathematics, then where is the Theorem? I think for those sitting a little closer to me it is pretty easy to tell. This!! The earring, the thing that shines the most in the painting. Nice analogy, isn’t it?

  2. A BOTTLE OF WINE: The second item is a bottle of wine that Clóvis and I actually bought during my first travel abroad, back in 2006 in Argentina. The bottle reminds me of him saying that there aren’t many things in life better than proving an original theorem and having a good glass of wine afterwards. We are probably all on the same page, right?

  3. TIE: The next object is a tip for you Professors and Teachers. One of Clóvis’ Calculus teachers would wear a tie whenever teaching the mathematical concept of “limit”.

  4. CHALK: Now, everybody knows that Clóvis has a brilliant mind and a terrific geometric intuition, and I’m about to reveal his secret for that…. Chalk, imported Chalk, not ordinary Chalk, a very fancy and expensive piece of Chalk. The power is hidden in the Chalk. This one is fake though, sorry!!!

  5. BLUE WORM Last but not least, we are all glad that you Clóvis didn’t leave us for the Dreamworks Studios in Hollywood. I guess everybody here agrees that your blue worm would have given you millions of dollars as a character in the animation “Ice Age”, for example. Now seriously, Professor Clóvis Gonzaga, you are a very smart and interesting person, an outstanding high level scientist, and in my opinion, a great appreciator of good things in life.

Thank you for teaching us Mathematics and for teaching us to think out of the box.

Now my colleagues are going to give you a present in honor of your birthday.

Thank you all for your attention and enjoy the night

Clóvis e Roger