List of Famous people who died at 79

Rudolf Wille was a German mathematician and was professor of General Algebra from 1970 to 2003 at Technische Universität Darmstadt. His most celebrated work is the invention of formal concept analysis, an unsupervised machine learning technique that applies mathematical lattice theory to organize data based on objects and their shared attributes.

Joseph Bonnel was a French football midfielder. He was part of France in the FIFA World Cup 1966. He scored 3 goals during the 1966 season.

Serge Lang was a French journalist, alpine skier, and the founder of the alpine skiing World Cup. As a journalist he covered alpine skiing, cycling, and other sports for five major publications. In the mid-1960s, he envisioned a season-long series of ski races, which became the World Cup skiing circuit. He continued to guide the growth of the World Cup and the sport of ski racing over the next two decades.

Arief Budiman was the older brother of Soe Hok Gie. He graduated from Kolese Kanisius, a Jesuit high school and then Universitas Indonesia where he earned a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1968. In 1980, he earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University, United States. He was a Muslim Chinese Indonesian sociologist and was a lecturer at the Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana, Salatiga, Indonesia until 1996. From 1997 for about ten years, he was a professor in Indonesian studies in University of Melbourne, Australia.

Ezio Pascutti was an Italian football manager and player, who played as a forward, either as a striker or as a winger. He spent his entire club career with Bologna, and represented Italy at two FIFA World Cups.

Jerome Robbins was an American choreographer, director, dancer, and theater producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television. Among his numerous stage productions were On the Town, Peter Pan, High Button Shoes, The King and I, The Pajama Game, Bells Are Ringing, West Side Story, Gypsy, and Fiddler on the Roof. Robbins was a five-time Tony Award-winner and a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. He received two Academy Awards, including the 1961 Academy Award for Best Director with Robert Wise for West Side Story.

Yang Mu was the pen name of a Taiwanese poet, essayist and critic in Chinese language. He was born as Wang Ching-hsien (王靖獻) on 6 September 1940 in Hualien County, Taiwan. As one of the representative figures in the field of contemporary Taiwanese literature, his work is known for its combining of the graceful style and writing techniques of Chinese classical poetry with elements of Western culture. Apart from romantic feelings, his works also reflect strong awareness of humanistic concern, which has thus brought him widespread attention and high respect. He was named the laureate of the 2013 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, making him the first poet and the first Taiwanese writer to have won the award.

Josef Carl Peter Neckermann was a German equestrian and Olympic champion. He won Olympic medals at four different Olympics, in 1960, 1964, 1968 and 1972. Later Neckermann became a member of the West German National Olympic Committee.

Namkhai Norbu was a Tibetan Dzogchen master. When he was two years old, Namkhai Norbu was recognized as the 'mindstream emanation', a tulku, of the Dzogchen teacher Adzom Drugpa (1842–1924). At five, he was also recognized as a mindstream emanation of an emanation of Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel (1594–1651). From an early age, Namkhai Norbu undertook an accelerated course of study, attending monastic college, taking retreats, and studying with renowned teachers, including some of the most important Tibetan masters of his time. Under the tutelage of these teachers, he completed the training required by the Buddhist tradition in both Sutrayana and Tantrayana. At the age of sixteen, he met master Rigdzin Changchub Dorje (1863-1963), who became his principal Dzogchen teacher.

William McIlvanney was a Scottish novelist, short story writer, and poet. He was known as Gus by friends and acquaintances. McIlvanney was a champion of gritty yet poetic literature; his works Laidlaw, The Papers of Tony Veitch, and Walking Wounded are all known for their portrayal of Glasgow in the 1970s. He is regarded as "the father of Tartan Noir" and as Scotland's Camus.