Download Speech by vice-rector Prof. Dr. Guido Langouche

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 !