Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Speech for the opening Ceremony of MTNS 2004 (www.mtns2004.be) International Symposium on Mathematical Theory of Networks and Systems Leuven, Belgium, July 5 – 9, 2004 Aula Pieter De Somer, Monday July 5, 2004 By Prof. Dr. Guido Langouche Vice-rector Exact Sciences Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to welcome all of you, here, in our magnificent city and our century old university. In particular, I would like to thank the Steering Committee of this International Symposium on Mathematical Theory of Networks and Systems, because of the visionary choice of Leuven as this year’s location of the conference. You won’t be disappointed ! Our University has a big tradition in Sciences and Mathematics, ever since its founding in 1425 by Pope Martin the Fifth, and it is the oldest, still existing, catholic university in the world. For those of you who are maybe confused, let me tell you that we also have a sister university, the ‘Université Catholique de Louvain’, which was created in 1968 and located some 30 kilometers to the south of Leuven. But our common history till 1968 is one of great tradition, scientific successes and historical drama’s. Our university was closed down by Napoleon but resurged after some 20 years, its main library was burned down in the First World War, and, as if once is not enough, also in the Second World War. Still today, you can see the commemoration stones in the rebuilt library, thanking the American schools that contributed to our modern collections. And under the central library’s tower, you can listen a couple of times each day, to the carillon bells donated by Americans to our university. But we have also been home to many magnificent scientists. Erasmus, who was born in Rotterdam, was a professor at our university, as well as the personal physician of Emperor Charles the Fifth, Andreas Vesalius. Other professors here were Gemma Frisius, a famous 16th century mathematician and his student, Gerard Mercator, the famous cartographer, who was among the first to make three-dimensional globes with maps of the world. One of our professors in theology became pope Adrianus the Sixth. Charles-Jean de la Vallée Poussin was a professor in Mathematics here when in 1896 he proved the prime number theorem. Monseigneur Lemaître, who interacted with Einstein, did his work on the Big Bang theory while being a professor here of cosmology. As you can see from these examples, our university is a complete university, having 14 faculties, organized in 50 departments, in humanities, exact and biomedical sciences. We have about 29 000 students, 1300 professors, 3500 researchers, who deliver about 300 doctorates per year and 2500 journal papers per year. But completeness is also an apparent distinct feature of your International Symposium on Mathematical Theory of Network and Systems, which is a major conference in the general area of mathematical systems theory. Your symposium is interdisciplinary and attracts mathematicians, engineers and researchers, working in all aspects of systems theory. It is organized every two years and traditionally covers areas involving a wide range of research directions in mathematical systems, networks and control theory. Mathematical methods which play a role in the areas mentioned above stem from a broad range of fields of pure and applied mathematics, including ordinary and partial differential equations, real and complex analysis, numerical analysis, probability theory and stochastic analysis, operator theory, linear and commutative algebra as well as algebraic and differential geometry. There are a wide range of applications ranging from problems in biology, communications and mathematical finance to problems in chemical engineering, aerospace engineering and robotics. As I heard from the organizers, you’re here in Leuven this week with more than 500 people from all over the world, and we are very proud of this. We sincerely hope that you will carry home in your heart a little piece of Leuven, and that in the near future, you will revisit us many times. I wish you the very best for your stay here in Leuven. Enjoy the scientific quality of this conference ! Enjoy the historical entourage offered by our university ! And finally, enjoy the famous hospitality of our city ! Thank you and good luck !