Jean-Raymond Abrial, father (in particular!) of the Z notation, but also of the B method, and then Event-B, passed away on May 26. I was surprised to see that this piece of news, which may be of some interest to formal method folks, doesn’t seem to be very well known (there’s not much material on the web).
Here are some links (on LinkedIn, sorry):
by Bertrand Meyer
by the ABZ 2025 conference
I’m also giving a translation of a mail from the French-researchers “GDR GPL” mailing-list (on June 4):
Dear colleagues,
We learned with great sadness yesterday of the passing of Jean-Raymond Abrial, who died in Marseille on May 26, 2025, on the eve of the day organized in his honor in Nantes.
Jean-Raymond Abrial, father of the Z, B, and Event-B formalisms, described himself in these words:
“There are two kinds of researchers: the prolific and the monomaniacal. I belong to the latter category, as I have always pursued the same kind of investigation, namely the specification and verified construction of computerized systems” [Collège de France, April 1, 2015].
But behind this modesty was a great man!
Jean-Raymond had a significant and lasting impact in the world of formal methods. He established principles and methods that have led to and continue to support remarkable industrial achievements. If we were to mention just one, it would be the automatic train control software for line 14 of the Paris metro, developed using the B method.
He also contributed to the development of the real-time language LTR, which was used for many years by the French Navy. During his time at IMAG in Grenoble, he developed SOCRATE, a network data management system. His 1974 article “Data Semantics” must also be mentioned—alongside Peter Pin-Shan Chen’s 1976 article “The Entity-Relationship Model: Toward a Unified View of Data”—as foundational to the various data models that exist or have existed. He was also a member of Jean Ichbiah’s team that proposed the GREEN project to the U.S. Department of Defense, which was selected and became the ADA language in May 1979.
Jean-Raymond was a gifted teacher, always delivering clear presentations with beautifully crafted models! And beyond that, he was incredibly kind, most often wearing a broad smile.
Thank you, Jean-Raymond!
Catherine Dubois,
Yamine Aït Ameur,
Régine Laleau,
Dominique Méry