Alexandre Chorin: key obituary facts
Is Alexandre Chorin dead? Yes. Alexandre Chorin died on October 19, 2026, at age 88.
Cause of death: Alexandre Chorin's cause of death has not been publicly confirmed.
What was Alexandre Chorin known for?
He was an American mathematician.
More about Alexandre Chorin
Born: 25 June 1938.
Place of birth: Warsaw.
Gender: male.
Occupation: mathematician, university teacher.
Nationality: United States.
Education: Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science, New York University.
Employer: New York University, University of California, Berkeley.
Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship, National Medal of Science, Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics, Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
Also known as: Alexandre Joel Chorin.
Known for: Artificial Compressibility Method, Projection Method, Random Vortex Method, Implicit Sampling.
Alexandre Chorin, an American mathematician known for work in computational fluid mechanics, turbulence and computational statistical mechanics, died October 19, 2026, aged 88.
Born Alexandre Joel Chorin in Warsaw, Poland, on June 25, 1938, he developed computational methods for addressing problems in physics and fluid mechanics. His early research introduced numerical methods for solving the Navier-Stokes equations, including the method of artificial compressibility, the projection method and vortex methods.
These approaches became widely used in computational work on fluid mechanics. The Random Vortex Method is among the methods associated with his contributions, which also included the development of the broader vortex-method approach. Chorin’s research extended beyond numerical techniques for fluid flow to turbulence theory, another major area of his work. His career also encompassed computational statistical mechanics, applying computational approaches to problems in that field. Implicit Sampling is another method identified with his work. Together, these areas reflect the breadth of his research: developing ways to study physical systems computationally, with particular attention to fluid mechanics and the mathematical description of turbulence. His named methods addressed the computational treatment of the Navier-Stokes equations, while his contributions to turbulence theory and statistical mechanics placed his work across several related areas of applied mathematics.