Patricio Letelier

Patricio Letelier (1943-2011): Letelier was an undisputed leader in the field of General Relativity and an active teacher in all the institutions he worked to. His death, premature and unexpected, ended a long career in science that began in the 1960s when Patricio completed his university studies at the University of Chile.

His doctorate was obtained at Boston University in 1977. In 1978, he took up a position at the Department of Physics of the University of Brasília - UnB, where he remained until 1988, the year after which he moved to the Department of Applied Mathematics of State University of Campinas - UNICAMP.

His extensive and diverse list of publications portrays his activities of a fully realized scientist. His also extensive list of students and collaborators demonstrates its enormous influence in Brazilian and world science. He made relevant contributions in the theoretical studies of black holes, chaos, topological defects, exact solutions, mathematical and physical aspects of General Relativity Theory.

The organizing committee of the Second School has been undertaking the efforts for one more posthumous homage to Prof. Letelier, trying to assign his name to an asteroid discovered by a practicing astronomer who he advised for a doctor thesis.

As announced at beginning of the school, an asteroid was named in honor of Prof. Patricio Letelier:

https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?utf8=%E2%9C%93&object_id=109879

(109879) Letelier = 2001 SL 

Discovered at Fountain Hills on 2001-09-16 by C. W. Juels and P. R. Holvorcem.

(109879) Letelier = 2001 SL

Chilean mathematical physicist Patricio Letelier (1943-2011) made many contributions to General Relativity theory, including studies of black holes, chaos, topological defects, and exact solutions of Einstein's equations. He obtained his Ph.D. at Boston and taught at the Universities of Brasília and Campinas in Brazil. [Ref: Minor Planet Circ. 107740]