Hosting WFNMC 2002

Introduction

WFNMC had been founded at the ICME-5 Conference in Adelaide in 1984. Immediately a Newsletter, to become a Journal, had been established. In 1990 Ron Dunkley decided to hold a conference by invitation at Waterloo. It was probably the best conference I ever attended, the first time a lot of people with similar interests had been able to get together in the way they did.

The Bulgarians, with their proud history in Olympiads, applied immediately to host a second conference in 1994, and they were to hold this at Pravets, birthplace of the Bulgarian President. This was held successfully, although there were some variations from Waterloo. The main difference was that the Bulgarians arranged for Paul Erdos to attend, and he did as a normal participant through the whole duration of the conference. Most attenders found themselves meeting him at some stage, whether sitting next to him on a bus or at the same table for a meal or tea break.

In Bulgaria, China applied successfully to host the third Conference in Zhong Shan, birthplace of Dr Sun Yat Sen, just across the Pearl Estuary from Hong Kong, making Hong Kong the natural arrival and departure airport. It was also near the IMO in Taipei so a lot of people attended by arriving in Hong Kong and us all making the crossing to Zhong Shan together by ferry. By this stage I was Executive Director of the Trust and felt we should apply. In 1998 then I filed an application top hold the fourth conference in Melbourne in 2002.

In my view the concept of Erdos in Bulgaria had been brilliant, but he was now deceased, and I needed to find another universally admired mathematician. The obvious choice was John Conway and I was fortunate enough to invite him in person when he toured Australia soon after 1998 and he was gracious to accept.

Conway was a very popular choice. He gave a heavily attended public lecture on the first evening at the University of Melbourne. He fully participated in all sessions and excursions. Here he is on the main excursion, which went to the Healesville wild life sanctuary and a winery. (Rear) Slavy Bilchev (Bulgaria), Vasile Berinde (Romania), Josef Molnar (Czech Republic), John Conway, Jaroslav Svrcek (Czech Republic). (Front) Jaroslav Zhouf (Czech Republic).

Another feature was the attendance of Bernhard Neumann at what was to be one of his last conferences. Bernard can be seen in the front row of the above session.

A feature of some other conferences had been problem creating sessions. Some had remarked to me that they had a lot of experience of this and preferred more lectures. I came up with the idea of asking each participant to have a short while to introduce their favourite problems. This seemed to go very well, but other opinions still existed and in the following conference the UK hosts reverted to the other format, although this did not continue later either.

The total number of attenders, including partners, was almost 100. Other than the excursion described above there was another where we took sports-loving attenders to an AFL game at the MCG, while those who preferred the arts went to the Victorian Art Gallery.

Erdos Awards

One of the highlights was the presentation of Erdos Awards to two attenders. These are covered in the following links.

Erdös Award presentation to Harold Reiter (USA).

Erdös Award presentation to Wen-Hsien Sun (Taiwan).

Gallery (with acknowledgement to Howard Groves, Jaroslav Svrcek and Jordan Tabov for some of the photos)

Nikolay Konstantinov (Russia) with Harold Reiter (USA).

Jordan Tabov (Bulgaria) with Francisco Bellot-Rosado (Spain).

Tony Gardiner (England) with Alan Nambiar (South Africa).

Jaroslav Svrcek (Czech Republic) with Petar Kenderov (Bulgaria).

Lois Taylor (Australia) with Wen-Hsien Sun (Taiwan).

Matjaz Zeljko (Slovenia) with Aleksander Potocnik (Slovenia).

Peter and Lois Taylor (Australia) with Prodipta Hore (India).

Patricia and Gareth Griffith (Canada) with Andre Ladouceur (Canada).

Howard Groves (Wales) with Bill Richardson (Scotland).

Tony and Gwyn Gardiner (England).

Agnis Andjans (Latvia), Liga Ramana (Latvia) and Emilia Velikova (Bulgaria).

Gareth Griffith, Peter Crippin, and Ian VanderBurgh, all from Canada.

Krys Richardson (Scotland) with kangaroo.

Warren Atkins (Australia) with Fernanda Cannon (Australia)

Geoff Ball (Australia) with Alexander Soifer. (USA)

From left Hossein Pourkazemi (Iran), Peter Taylor (Australia), Prodipta Hore (India), Emilia Velikova (Bulgaria), Ali Rejali (Iran), Alan Nambiar (South Africa).

Ron Dunkley (Canada) at the Cuckoo.

Maurice Starck (New Caledonia), Alexander Soifer (USA), Jaroslav Svrcek (Czech Republic) and Jordan Tabov (Bulgaria).

From left, Nikolay Konstantinov (Russia), Petar Kenderov {Bulgaria), Harold Reiter (USA) and Blair Kelly (USA).

Jordan Tabov (Bulgaria) with Vasile Berinde (Romania).

Krys and Bill Richardson (Scotland).

From left Ali Rejali (Iran), Lois Taylor (Australia) and Hossein Pourkazemi (Iran).