A few paragraphs can’t do justice to the impact of ICM 2002 in Beijing, August 20–28. It was a very intense experience, both from the activity at the conference and from the travels around the city. I arrived in Beijing at 11 p.m., with students still at the airport to welcome and guide the foreign guests to their hotel. There were also English-speaking students posted at the hotels to help guests communicate with the hotel staff. There were almost 4800 mathematicians attending overall, many from China and other Asian countries.
The Fields and Nevanlinna medals were presented at the opening ceremonies, with China’s President Jiang Zemin in attendance. It was held at the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square. The medalists, Laurent Lafforgue, Vladimir Voevodsky, and Madhu Sudan, gave talks at the conference. (Lafforgue really wanted to give his talk in French, he said, but consented to give it in English.)
The plenary talks were in the morning, with invited and contributed talks in the afternoon. Almost all plenary talks and invited talks that I attended were excellent—exhilarating even. Some of my favorites were David Mumford on Pattern Theory, Alon Noga on Discrete Math, and Douglas Norman on Numerical Analysis. John Nash, who was in China for another conference, gave a talk one evening. The WAM panel discussion afforded a forum for women around the world to compare notes, voicing perspectives from other countries and other cultures.
The conference organizers did a superb job of providing services and making the conference enjoyable. Myriads of students were deployed to give help and directions. There were trips offered to tourist sites, a performance with Chinese singers, musicians, acrobats, and a trip to the Peking Opera. A huge outdoor party—the food was delicious and some was even cooked right there—came with the conference registration.
Good memories: climbing the Great Wall at Badaling, trying to keep up with John Ewing; enduring the heat of the Great Wall and Ming Tombs with Smilka Zdravkovska from Math Reviews; dining at the elegant Sichuan Restaurant with Michigan folks (Dan and Kit Frohardt, Jane and Jim Kister, Debra and Trevor Wooley, Po Hu and new spouse Igor Kriz); negotiating the public transportation system; bargaining in the street markets, using my limited knowledge of Chinese; meeting interesting folks from everywhere.
And then, the day after arriving home, I started to teach all my classes—and managed to stay awake.
Ruth Favro, LTU
Back to the Fall
Newsletter
This page is maintained by Earl D. Fife