only technically appropriate but also(knowingly)salacious, as we were immediately and thunderously informed: change title or you' ll never publish in Phys Rev again! Though we (of course) gave in, it has always been a source of regret to all three of us to have lost such a unique chance at a swinging reputation. Luckily (?) the orig- inal title has been preserved for posterity in the Arxiv listing. Finally, Claudio has always had a venturesome weakness(before it became de rigueur) for dimensions outside the usual 4, in both directions; I think here not only of the 3 of BTZ, but of his pioneering and very fertile work in 2D GR, as well as his forays into D>4 o. I could go on and on, but let me rest my case here and wish one of the giants in Ir field a prolonged analytic continuation Stanley deser
8 Greetings only technically appropriate but also (knowingly) salacious, as we were immediately and thunderously informed: change title or you’ll never publish in Phys Rev again! Though we (of course) gave in, it has always been a source of regret to all three of us to have lost such a unique chance at a swinging reputation. Luckily(?), the original title has been preserved for posterity in the Arxiv listing. Finally, Claudio has always had a venturesome weakness (before it became de rigueur) for dimensions outside the usual 4, in both directions; I think here not only of the 3 of BTZ, but of his pioneering and very fertile work in 2D GR, as well as his forays into D > 4. I could go on and on, but let me rest my case here and wish one of the giants in our field a prolonged analytic continuation! Stanley Deser
Greetings Greeting from rome volodia helinski Dear Claudio First of all Trayasca Chaushescu! Then I congratulate you with your 60th anniversary, with Christmas and with coming New Year. I wish you good health good money and satisfaction in your private life. These three ingredients are basic Plus to this I wish you to continue your successful scientific activity, in spite of the fact that the works you already did are more than enough to leave a significant trace in Theoretical Physics Unfortunately I cannot come to Valdivia at January for""Claudio fest"(I have some health problems and recovering need few months from now, please remember I am much older than you, I am 66! ) Hope to see you somewhere in the ne future Yours Volodia belinsky > INFN, Rome University"La Sapienza", 00185 Rome, Italy, e-mail: belinski@ICRA.it
Greetings 9 Greeting from Rome Volodia Belinski5 Dear Claudio, First of all Trayasca Chaushescu! Then I congratulate you with your 60th anniversary, with Christmas and with coming New Year. I wish you good health, good money and satisfaction in your private life. These three ingredients are basic. Plus to this I wish you to continue your successful scientific activity, in spite of the fact that the works you already did are more than enough to leave a significant trace in Theoretical Physics. Unfortunately I cannot come to Valdivia at January for “Claudio fest” (I have some health problems and recovering need few months from now, please remember that I am much older than you, I am 66!). Hope to see you somewhere in the next future. Yours, Volodia Belinski 5 INFN, Rome University “La Sapienza”, 00185 Rome, Italy, e-mail: belinski@ICRA.it
Greeting from Goteborg Bengt Ni Dear organizers It would be great to go to Chile and see Claudio again after so many years. I last met him in Santiago, where we all met as you probably remember Unfortuna I will not be able to make it. So maybe I can ask you to give him my very best regards and wishes for the future Although I did not interact very much with him in Texas(we met just a couple of times; he was in Europe, I think, for most of the time)I do owe him a lot for creating ( together with Weinberg )the postdoc position which was my first one(I had to turn down an offer from Peccei in Munchen which was a bit tricky) I find Claudio an extremely nice and warm person and I wish him all the best. He once took my wife and me out for dinner in Austin and he made impression on both of us Bengt nilsson Fundamental Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, SE 412 96 G Sweden. e-mail tfebn@ @fy. chalmers.se
10 Greetings Greeting from Goteborg ¨ Bengt Nilsson6 Dear organizers, It would be great to go to Chile and see Claudio again after so many years. I last met him in Santiago, where we all met as you probably remember. Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it. So maybe I can ask you to give him my very best regards and wishes for the future. Although I did not interact very much with him in Texas (we met just a couple of times; he was in Europe, I think, for most of the time) I do owe him a lot for creating (together with Weinberg) the postdoc position which was my first one (I had to turn down an offer from Peccei in M¨unchen which was a bit tricky). I find Claudio an extremely nice and warm person and I wish him all the best. He once took my wife and me out for dinner in Austin and he made a very special impression on both of us. Yours, Bengt Nilsson 6 Fundamental Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, SE 412 96 G¨oteborg, Sweden, e-mail: tfebn@fy.chalmers.se
Opening Lecture Marc henneaux In the name of the organizing committee, it is a great pleasure to welcome all of you to Claudio s Fest, a meeting in which we shall celebrate the scientific work accom plished so far by Claudio. It has become customary to choose the 60th birthday for such celebrations and we have followed the tradition although we all know that a scientific career does not stop at 60 and that we shall therefore miss all the important scientific contributions that are still to come Your presence with us today is a clear homage that the international scientific community is paying to a great scientist. The meeting is organized by CECS, with support from the International Solvay Institutes, of which Claudio is an honorary Quantum Mechanics of Fundamental Systems: The Quest for Beauty and Sim- plicity"is the title that we have chosen for the conference. This is a wink to the early days of CECS, since the physics meetings organized by Claudio in Santiago in the 1980s, when the center was just created, were precisely entitled"Quantum Mechan ics of Fundamental Systems. We hope that the present conference will carry the same pioneering spirit, the same freshness, the same driving enthusiasm as those heroic meetings and that we shall all remember it as one of these unusual confer ences where something magic occurred To stimulate the discussions, we have invited more participants than speakers his is also in perfect line with the philosophy of the CECS's early meetings where discussions were central. I would like to thank all the participants, speakers and non-speakers, for having accepted our invitation and for being with us to make this meeting a very special event indeed The Quest for Beauty and Simplicity"are words that we added to the title of the original conferences in order to reflect Claudio's central inspiration in his research Black holes, and in particular the black hole in three dimensions, as well as magnetic Universite Libre de Bruxelles and International Solvay Institutes, ULB-Campus Plaine CP231 B-1050 Bruxelles, Belgium M. Henneaux, J Zanelli(eds ) Quantum Mechanics of Fundamental Systems: The Quest lI for Beauty and Simplicity. DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-87499-9-2, C Springer Science+ Business Media LLC 2009
Opening Lecture Marc Henneaux In the name of the organizing committee, it is a great pleasure to welcome all of you to Claudio’s Fest, a meeting in which we shall celebrate the scientific work accomplished so far by Claudio. It has become customary to choose the 60th birthday for such celebrations and we have followed the tradition, although we all know that a scientific career does not stop at 60 and that we shall therefore miss all the important scientific contributions that are still to come. Your presence with us today is a clear homage that the international scientific community is paying to a great scientist. The meeting is organized by CECS, with support from the International Solvay Institutes, of which Claudio is an honorary member. “Quantum Mechanics of Fundamental Systems: The Quest for Beauty and Simplicity” is the title that we have chosen for the conference. This is a wink to the early days of CECS, since the physics meetings organized by Claudio in Santiago in the 1980s, when the center was just created, were precisely entitled “Quantum Mechanics of Fundamental Systems.” We hope that the present conference will carry the same pioneering spirit, the same freshness, the same driving enthusiasm as those heroic meetings and that we shall all remember it as one of these unusual conferences where something magic occurred. To stimulate the discussions, we have invited more participants than speakers. This is also in perfect line with the philosophy of the CECS’s early meetings where discussions were central. I would like to thank all the participants, speakers and non-speakers, for having accepted our invitation and for being with us to make this meeting a very special event indeed. “The Quest for Beauty and Simplicity” are words that we added to the title of the original conferences in order to reflect Claudio’s central inspiration in his research. Black holes, and in particular the black hole in three dimensions, as well as magnetic M. Henneaux Universit´e Libre de Bruxelles and International Solvay Institutes, ULB-Campus Plaine CP231, B-1050 Bruxelles, Belgium e-mail: henneaux@ulb.ac.be M. Henneaux, J. Zanelli (eds.), Quantum Mechanics of Fundamental Systems: The Quest 11 for Beauty and Simplicity, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-87499-9 2, c Springer Science+Business Media LLC 2009
Fig. 1 The Quest for Beauty and Simplicity: Picasso's series of ll drawings of a bull monopoles, are for instance enigmatically beautiful, and presumably ultimately sim- ple objects which have been recurrent themes in Claudios investigations. The best illustration of this quest for beauty and simplicity is due to Claudio himself, who likes to show the famous series of ll drawings of a bull due to picasso to start some of his lectures( Fig. 1) This is a physics conference. I believe, however, that it would be impossible to celebrate Claudio's 60th birthday without evoking his exceptional contribution to the development of science in Chile. When he decided more than 20 years ago to give up prestigious positions in the United States to come back to Chile and to build from scratch, without local support, a private research institute, I remember that many colleagues all over the world said that he was completely mad and that this enterprize was bound to fail. Time has shown that these pessimistic colleagues were wrong and that Claudio was right. CECS is in the world league of top research insti- tutions and remarkably contributes to the international scientific visibility of Chile. If we are all here today in Chile, it is thanks to this most significant achievement. I have known Claudio for almost 30 years now. What a long way since I arrived at Princeton in 1978 as a student! What started as a l-year visit turned into a long term collaboration. I think I am therefore in a good position to describe, in the name of Claudio's students and collaborators, his unique style of work that has deeply influenced us as physicists. This is not an easy exercise- to speak about a friend in his presence is never an easy exercise -but I'll try to do it. Perhaps the first lesson
12 M. Henneaux Fig. 1 The Quest for Beauty and Simplicity: Picasso’s series of 11 drawings of a bull monopoles, are for instance enigmatically beautiful, and presumably ultimately simple objects which have been recurrent themes in Claudio’s investigations. The best illustration of this quest for beauty and simplicity is due to Claudio himself, who likes to show the famous series of 11 drawings of a bull due to Picasso to start some of his lectures (Fig. 1). This is a physics conference. I believe, however, that it would be impossible to celebrate Claudio’s 60th birthday without evoking his exceptional contribution to the development of science in Chile. When he decided more than 20 years ago to give up prestigious positions in the United States to come back to Chile and to build from scratch, without local support, a private research institute, I remember that many colleagues all over the world said that he was completely mad and that this enterprize was bound to fail. Time has shown that these pessimistic colleagues were wrong and that Claudio was right. CECS is in the world league of top research institutions and remarkably contributes to the international scientific visibility of Chile. If we are all here today in Chile, it is thanks to this most significant achievement. I have known Claudio for almost 30 years now. What a long way since I arrived at Princeton in 1978 as a student! What started as a 1-year visit turned into a longterm collaboration. I think I am therefore in a good position to describe, in the name of Claudio’s students and collaborators, his unique style of work that has deeply influenced us as physicists. This is not an easy exercise – to speak about a friend in his presence is never an easy exercise – but I’ll try to do it. Perhaps the first lesson