INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR / Opening Ceremony

Stanisław Janeczko, director of The Institute of Mathematics Polish Academy of Sciences speach

Ladies and Gentleman

It is my honor and privilege to welcome you all in The Institute of Mathematics Polish Academy of Sciences to celebrate its 60th anniversary. We are very honored to have the very special guests with us today – international friends and collaborators.

  • Prof. Friedrich Hirzebruch, director of the Max-Planck-Institute of Mathematics in Bonn, former President (first President) of European Mathematical Society and Chairmen of the Banach Center Council, who really helped to establish Banach Center in its difficult period of time.
  • Prof. Ari Laptev, from Stokholm, President of the European Mathematical Society and Chairmen of the Banach Center Council.
  • Prof. Rolf Jeltsch, from Zurich, former President of the European Mathematical Society and former Chairman of Banach Center Council.
  • Prof. Mina Teicher, director of the Emmy Noether Institute from Bar I Lan, Israel.
  • Prof. Gert-Martin Greuel, director of the Oberwolfach Institute from Germany.
  • Prof. Peter Palfy, director of the Alfred Renyi Institute from Budapest, Hungary and Member of the Banach Center Council.
  • Prof. Vasile Brinzanescu, director of the Institute of Mathematics Romannian Acedemy of Sciences from Bucarest.
  • Prof. Dmitry Treschev, scientific director of the Steklov Mathematical Institute from Moscow.
  • Prof. Milan Tvrdy, deputy director of the Mathematical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences from Praga.
  • Prof. Andrey Andreev, scientific secretary of the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences from Sofia.
  • Prof. Gyula Katona, former director of the Alfred Renyi Institute of Hungarian Academy of Sciences and former member of our Banach Center Council.

Starting to celebrate our 60th anniversary I would like to present briefly the main stages in the history of the Institute. Its roots where in the dream of Polish Mathematicians which came true shortly after the Second World War

Presentation

Institute is a leading mathematical research center in Poland! Being also the leader of the Consortium of all the best University Faculties of Mathematics.

In its future perspectives the Institute is a Central Mathematical Laboratory of Poland – International open Institute with an interdisciplinary activity in all of its levels

In education – which is one of the three attributes of modern Europe, together with research and innovation - training in fundamental understanding plays a crucial role. Among basic exact sciences, mathematics occupies a distinguished place. It requires special abilities from researchers and a multi-component aesthetic and rational motivation to reach the highest intellectual creativity. Interest in mathematics is a very fragile phenomenon, while a mathematical achievement is a result of a subtle interplay between flashes of insight, intuition and perseverance. It always goes beyond the current limits of understanding and often substantially extends the existing research methods.

Mathematical questions, problems and conjectures are frequently taken from descriptive models of real world and science. After being transformed by the genius of a mathematician, they come back to the real world through the natural process of feedback, resulting in an authentic progress of a knowledge-based society. This type of mathematical activity, involving a co-operation of the abstract and the concrete, is the area of applied mathematics. It should not be confused with making use of ready made mathematical results in science, technology and culture, which is the domain of applications of mathematics; the latter are nowadays a huge field of powerful and successful methods of universal science. Also, it has become obvious that the progress of most sciences strictly depends on the progress of basic mathematical research.

Information technology, finance, new medical technology, high and nanotechnology, cryptographic code transmission, global navigation and control, macro-economics and modeling bio-collective phenomena are only a few of a large variety of areas showing the practical and unavoidable impact of pure mathematical ideas on the enormously rapid social changes in the last 20 years.

Investing in the power of pure mathematical intellect should be one of Europe's priorities. To create substantial mathematical results, we absolutely need to ensure “incubator” conditions at all three stages of an individual mathematical career. First, at the stage of education, talents should be recognized and supported by successful researchers and individual, advanced study programmes. The research-driven education should then pass smoothly to the stage of unconstrained creativity in an atmosphere of liberty, freedom of thought, and originality. At this stage, one needs a highly research oriented environment, as well as access to global intellectual resources and support of the world scientific community. The third stage naturally adds the master's duties of fostering young talents, thus completing the cycle and bringing a generational advance.

In Poland, these goals are pursued by the Institute of Mathematics and Stefan Banach International Mathematical Center in Warsaw, which came into being in the beautiful tradition of the Polish Mathematical School. The two institutions were founded as a unique flexible frame to produce innovative mathematical ideas and original theories, and to support mathematicians at all stages of their career. Today, besides participating in intellectual globalization, the Institute has a nationwide character and continues to be one of the leading scientific communities in Poland. It provides a supportive and enriching environment for researchers, with a central mathematical library, a publishing house, conference facilities and branches in most active academic communities. To encourage a collaborative exchange of ideas between the most creative mathematicians of the world, the Stefan Banach International Mathematical Center hosts events gathering almost 2 000 researchers from nearly 50 countries each year. The Institute also provides graduate and post-doctoral training opportunities. It develops strong partnership with leading academic centres in Poland and is now building a platform, to encourage the transfer of mathematical methods to modern technology. The current quest and challenge is to create new forms of work and strengthen academic excellence in pure mathematics.

Ladies and gentlemen our celebration days are started. I wish all of you and especially our guests an interesting and enjoyable stay in our Institute.

We have got the congratulation letters from:

  1. Chairmen of the ERCOM Consortium prof. Jan Karel Lenstra
  2. Director of the Isaac Newton Institute prof. David Wallace
  3. Director of Max-Planck-Institut fur Mathematik in den Naturwissenschaften prof.Wolfgang Hackbusch
  4. Director of the IHES in Bures-Sur-Yvette, Jean-Pierre Bourguignon
  5. Director of Erwin Schredinger Institute prof. Klaus Schmidt
  6. Director of the Fields Institute prof. Edward Birstone
  7. Director of the Courant Institute prof. Leslie Greengard
  8. Director of the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics Bulgarian Academy of Sciences prof. Stefan Dodunekov