Luis Raluy Tomás, the patriarch of the traditional Circo Raluy, has died at the age of 79, after a long illness, in Valencia, as reported by his family in a statement today.

With an impressive career as a circus director, clown, musician, as well as a mathematician, “Luis leaves behind a centenary legacy that will last in time and that will continue to live on through the legacy of Circus Raluy where his family unites.”

Luis was a “self-taught, nomadic, free spirit” who “has always opted for a world without borders, for peace, for the understanding of peoples and devoted body and soul to the circus.” This statement given by his family also commemorates that Luis was “a special being, filled with light, kindness, generosity and love. Luis is the circus and the circus will never die.”

Luis was born in 1942 in Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona to father Luis Raluy Iglesias (founder of the Raluy Circus) and mother Marina Tomàs Jorba. He lived the life of a traditional circus kid always on the go and following the family trade. He was a clown, a bullet man, a flying trapeze artist and a fixed-bar acrobat.

In his self-taught mathematic endeavors, Luis’s main area of interest was the investigation the prime numbers. He published four books, including, ‘Ingenious theory of space and time‘ and ‘Scope of prime numbers, their structure and distribution‘.

Luis is survived by his wife Barbara Rastall Raluy, their daughters, Louisa, and Kerry and four grandchildren, Sunday, Emily, Benicio and Charmelle.