Sverre Aarseth

Sverre Johannes Aarseth, (20 July 1934 – 28 December 2024) was a Norwegian research scientist at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. Aarseth spent his retirement as an active researcher. He dedicated his career to the development of N-body codes^[1] ("a code" in astrophysical jargon refers to a computer program or library or a group thereof^[2]). He is the author of the NBODY family of codes, the current iteration is NBODY7.^[3] His areas of research included the effects of stellar evolution in N-body codes, the influence of black holes on stellar systems, the evolution of globular clusters, and the use of GPUs to increase the speed of his codes.

Aarseth was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1986–87.^[4] He was awarded the 1998 Brouwer Award for his work on advancing dynamical astronomy.^[5] The asteroid 9836 Aarseth is named in his honour.

Outside of research, Aarseth's interests included mountaineering, trekking and wildlife.^[6] He is also a keen chess player, and was awarded the title International Master for Correspondence in 1981.^[7] Aarseth died on 28 December 2024, at the age of 90.^[8]