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- 1986 - Tashkent
- 1990 - Uppsala
- 1994 - Chapell Hill 
- 1996 - Vienna
- 2000 - Guanajuato
- 2004 - Barcelona
- 2008 - Singapore
- 2012 - Istanbul
- 2016 - Toronto
- 2021 - Seoul

- 2024 - Bochum

 

1st. 1986 in Tashkent (USSR), September 8-14

International Organizing Committee

Chairman: P. Revesz (Hungary)

Further members: V. V. Sazonov (USSR)

S. Kh. Sirazhdinov (USSR)

E. L. Scott (USA)

J. Teugels (Belgium)

C. C. Heyde (Australia)

Program Committee

Chairman: K. Krickeberg (France)

Further members:

A. A. Borovkov (USSR)

D. G. Kendall (UK)

D. R. Cox (UK)

Yu. V. Prokhorov (USSR)

S. Resnick (USA)

W. R. van Zwet (Holland)

A. N. Shiryaev (USSR)

Soviet Organizing Committee

Honorary Chairman: A. N. Kolmogorov

Chairman: Yu. V. Prokhorov

Tashkent Organizing Committee

Chaiman: S. Kh. Sirazhdinov

For more information: Bernoulli News, Vol. 17, No 1 (2010)

Note by Albert Shiryaev and opening words by A. N. Kolmogorov

Interview with Albert Shiryaev conducted by Vladimir Vatutin, from Bernoulli News November 2014
 

2nd. 1990 in Uppsala (Sweden), August 13-17

700 to 800 participants.

An outstanding international event was the 2nd World Congress of the Bernoulli

Society and 53rd Annual Meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. Which was held in Uppsala 13-18 August 1990. Allan Gut was the secretary of the National organizing committee and one of the local organizers. There were 700-­800 participants from all over the world and the congress was a great success.

Secretary of the Local Organizing Committee: Allan Gut

Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:

Bernoulli Lecture: Yakov G. Sinai

Cramér Lecture: Søren Johansen

Neyman Lecture: Peter Whittle

Kolmogorov Lecture: David G. Kendall

For more information: Bernoulli News, Vol. 17, No 1 (2010)

Note Comments on the meeting by Allan Gut

 

 

3rd. 1994 in Chapell Hill (USA), June 20-25

700 participants. For details see the “Report on Activities 2004” in Bernoulli News, Vol. 2 No.1 (1995)

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:

Bernoulli Lecture: Herman Chernoff

Laplace Lecture: Adrian F.M. Smith

Kolmogorov Lecture: Peter Jagers

Chair of the Programme Committee: M. Eaton

Chair of the Local Organizing Committee: R. Leadbetter

 

 

4th. 1996 in Vienna (Austria), August 26-31

700 participants. For details see “Conference 1996” in Bernoulli News, Vol. 3 No.1 (1996)

University of Vienna

Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:

Bernoulli Lecture: David Donoho

Laplace Lecture: Michel Talagrand with E. Bolthausen, L. Lovasz and L. Birgé as discussants

Kolmogorov Lecture: Peter Hall

Stochastic Processes and Applications Lecture (now Lévy Lecture): D.A. Dawson

IMS Special Invited Lectures: J.P. Kahane and D. Stoyan

Royal Statistical Society Ordinary Meeting and a Special Lecture: P.J. Diggle and I.A.l. Wasel

Programme Committee

Friedrich Götze (chair)

Further members: Ricardo Fraiman (Uruguay), Richard Gill (Netherlands, ex officio), Takeyuki Hida (Japan), Iain Johnstone (Stanford, USA), Jana Jureckova (Czech Republic), Niels Keiding (Denmark), Rafail Khasminskii (USA), Pascal Massart (France), Pal Revesz (Austria), Richard Smith (USA/UK)

Local Organizing Committee

Georg Pflug (chair)

Further members: Imanuel Bonze, Wilfried Grossmann, Walter Gutjahr, Benedikt Pöttscher (all University of Vienna), Manfred Deistler (Technical University of Vienna), Helmunt Strasser (Economical University of Vienna)

 

 

5th. 2000 in Guanajuato (Mexico), May 15-21

550 participants. For details see “Reports on Recent Activities” in Bernoulli News, Vol. 7 No. 1 (2000)

CIMAT (Research Center for Mathematics)

Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:

Bernoulli Lecture: P.Donnelly

Laplace Lecture: I.Johnstone

Kolmogorov Lecture: S.R.S.Varadhan

Stochastic Processes and Applications Lecture (now Lévy Lecture): M.Yor

IMS Special Invited Lectures: M. West, I. Karatzas, W. Van Der Vaart and E. Bolthausen

Wald Lectures: N. Reid

Neyman Lecture: M.E. Bock

Programme Committee

Evarist Giné (chair)

Further members: L. Brown (USA), C. Cutler (Canadá), M. Fukushima (Japan), L. Gorostiza (Mexico), W. Kendall (Germany), C. Klüppelberg (Germany), M. Ledoux (France), E. Mammen (Germany), D. Mason (USA), V. Pérez-Abreu (Mexico), J. Pitman (USA), A. Raftery (USA), D. Siegmund (USA), B. Silverman (England), R. Tibshirani (Canada), J. Wellner (USA), R. Williams (USA), W. Wong (USA).

Local Organizing Committee

Victor Perez-Abreu (chair)

Further members: V. Aguirre, F. Avila, L.M. Briseño, M.E. Caballero, S. Cancino, A. Carrillo, M. Cerrilla (Conference Secretary), R. Dávalos, J.L. Enríquez, B. Fernández, U. García, G. González, J.M. González –Barrios, J.A. León, J.A. López, M. Moreno, M. Nakamura, L. Navarro, R. Quezada, L. Rincón Gallardo, J. Ruíz de Chávez, B. Trejo, J. Villaseñor.

 

 

6th. 2004 in Barcelona (Spain), July 26-31

700 participants. For details see the conference website.

University of Barcelona

Special Bernoulli Society Lectures

Bernoulli Lecture: Jun Liu

Laplace Lecture: Steffen L. Lauritzen

Kolmogorov Lecture: David Aldous

Lévy Lecture: Wendelin Werner

IMS Special Invited Lectures

Wald Lecture: Iain Johnstone

Rietz Lecture: Peter Bickel

Medallion Lecturers: Vladimir Koltchinskii, Evarist Giné, Cun-Hui Zhang, Alison Etheridge, and Dominique Picard

Programme Committee

Wilfrid Kendall (chair)

Further members: Gérard Ben Arous (Courant, NY), David Brillinger (Berkeley), Rainer Dahlhaus (Heidelberg) , Michel Delecroix (ENSAI, Bruz), Evarist Giné (Connecticut), Wenceslao González Manteiga, (Santiago de Compostela), Russ Lyons (Indiana), Enno Mammen (Heidelberg), Thomas Mikosch (Copenhagen), Susan Murphy (Michigan), David Nualart (Barcelona), Doug Nychka (NCAR, Boulder), Yosi Ogata (Tokyo), Chris Rogers (Cambridge), Roberto Schonmann (UCLA, Los Angeles), Michael Sørensen (Copenhagen), Simon Tavaré (USC, Los Angeles), Sara van de Geer (Leiden), Anton Wakolbinger (Frankfurt), Ofer Zeitouni (Technion, Haifa)

Local Organizing Committee

David Nualart (chair)

Further members: Joan del Castillo (UAB), José M. Corcuera (UB), Arturo Kohatsu-Higa (UPF), David Márquez-Carreras (UB), Carles Rovira (UB), Marta Sanz-Solè (UB), Frederic Utzet (UAB)

 

 

7th.2008 in Singapore, July 14-19

550 participants. For details see the conference website.

National University of Singapore

Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:

Bernoulli Lecture: David Spiegelhalter

Laplace Lecture: Jianqing Fan

Kolmogorov Lecture: Alain-Sol Sznitman

Lévy Lecture: Alice Guionnet

Tukey Lecture: Elizabeth Thompson


BS-IMS Special Lectures: Oded Schramm and Wendelin Werner

IMS Special Invited Lectures:

Wald Lecture: Richard Durrett

Rietz Lecture:

Neyman Lecture: Peter McCullagh

Medallion Lecturers: Martin Barlow, Zhi-Ming Ma and Mark Low

Public Lecture: Douglas Nychka

Programme Committee:

Ruth Williams (chair)

Further members:

Vivek Borkar (Tata Institute, India), Peter Bühlmann (ETH Zürich, Switzerland), Louis Chen (National University of Singapore, Singapore), Jim Fill (Johns Hopkins University, USA), Arnoldo Frigessi (University of Oslo, Norway), Peter Green (University of Bristol, UK), Peter Hall (University of Melbourne, Australia), Steve Lalley (University of Chicago, USA), Petr Lansky (Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic), Jean-François Le Gall (ENS and University of Paris XI, France), Makoto Maejima (Keio University, Japan), Andrew Nobel (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA), Marta Sanz-Solé (University of Barcelona, Spain), Qi-Man Shao (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China and University of Oregon, USA), Bernard Silverman (University of Oxford, UK), Mike Steel (University of Canterbury, New Zealand), Maria Eulalia Vares (CBPF, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Keith Worsley (McGill University, Canada), Henry Wynn (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK), Bin Yu (University of California at Berkeley, USA)

Local Organizing Committee :

Louis Chen (chair)

Further members:

Bruce Brown (National University of Singapore), Yiu Man Chan (National University of Singapore), Sanjay Chaudhuri (National University of Singapore), Zehua Chen (National University of Singapore), Kwok Pui Choi (National University of Singapore) (Organizing Secretary), Tin Chiu Chua (National University of Singapore), Fah Fatt Gan (National University of Singapore), Anthony Kuk (National University of Singapore) (Co-chair), Koon Shing Kwong (Singapore Management University), Denis Leung (Singapore Management University), Wei Liem Loh (National University of Singapore)

8th . 2012 in Istanbul (Turkey), July 9-14

750 participants. For details see the conference website.

Grand Cevahir Hotel and Convention Center

Programme Committee

Arnoldo FRIGESSI University of Oslo (Chair)

Further members:
Adrian BADDELEY, University of Western Australia

Vladimir BOGACHEV, Moscow State University
Krzysztof BURDZY, University of Washington
T. Tony CAI, University of Pennsylvania
Elvan CEYHAN, Koç University
Probal CHAUDHURI, Indian Statistical Institute
Mine ÇAĞLAR, Koç University
Erhan ÇINLAR, Princeton University
Anthony DAVISON, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Rick DURRETT, Duke University
Alice GUIONNET, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon
Peter GLYNN, Stanford University
Peter GUTTORP, University of Washington
Onésimo HERNÁNDEZ, Instituto Politécnico Nacional
Dmitry IOFFE, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
Sushmita MITRA, Indian Statistical Institute
Shige PENG, Shandong University
Dominique PICARD, Université Paris VII
Kavita RAMANAN, Brown University
Sylvia RICHARDSON, Imperial College
Vladas SIDORAVICIUS, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada
Michael SØRENSEN, University of Copenhagen
Matthew STEPHENS, University of Chicago
Guenther WALTHER, Stanford University
Victor YOHAI, Universidad de Buenos Aires
Nakahiro YOSHIDA, University of Tokyo
Thaleia ZARIPHOPOULOU, The University of Texas at Austin

Local Organizing Committee


Elvan CEYHAN, Koç University (Co-chair)
Mine ÇAĞLAR, Koç University (Co-chair)

Further members:
Fikri AKDENİZ, Çukurova University
Ülkü GÜRLER, Bilkent University
Þennur ONUR, Turkish Statistical Institute
Süleyman ÖZEKİCİ, Koç University
Semih SEZER, Sabancı University
Fetih YILDIRIM, Çankaya University

Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:

Bernoulli Lecture: Peter GREEN

Laplace Lecture: Anestis ANTONIADIS

Kolmogorov Lecture: Stas SMIRNOV

Lévy Lecture: Maria Eulália VARES

Tukey Lecture: Bin YU

Joint BS-IMS special invited lectures:

Doob Lecture: Yves LE JAN


IMS Special Invited Lectures:

Wald Lecture: Steffen LAURITZEN

Le Cam Lecture: Pascal MASSART

 

Medallion Lecturers: Sourav CHATTERJEE , Nicole EL KAROUI, Franco FLANDOLI,Alexandre TSYBAKOV, Van VU

Public Lecture: Peter DIGGLE

For the opening speech by A. Frigessi, see Bernoulli News, vol. 19, no 2, (2012).

 

9th . 2016 in Toronto (Canada), July 11-15

For details see the conference website

Programme Committee:

Alison Etheridge (Scientific Programme Committee Chair)
Iain Johnstone (Stanford)
Judith Rousseau (IMS Programme Secretary)
Tom Salisbury (Chair Local organisers)
Fang Yao (representative of Statistical Society of Canada)
Nakahiro Yoshida (Bernoulli Society Scientific Secretary)
Probal Chaudhuri (Indian Statistical Institute)
Song Xi Chen (Beijing/Iowa)
Nick Duffield (Texas A&M)
Pablo Ferrari (Buenos Aires)
Michael Jordan (Berkeley)
Xihong Lin (Harvard)
Zhi-Ming Ma (Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Greg Miermont (Lyon)
Lea Popovic (Concordia)
Alexander Tsybakov (Paris 6)
Larry Wasserman (Carnegie Mellon)
Alan Welsh (ANU)
Nanny Wermuth (Chalmers/Mainz) 
 
Local Committee Chair: Tom Salisbury (York)
 

Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:

Bernoulli Lecture: Valerie Isham

Laplace Lecture: Byeong Park

Kolmogorov Lecture: Ruth Williams

Lévy Lecture: Servet Martinez

Tukey Lecture: David Brillinger

Ethel Newbold Prize Lecture: Judith Rousseau

Joint BS-IMS special invited lectures:

Doob Lecture: Scott Sheffield

Schramm Lecture: Ofer Zeitouni


IMS Special Invited Lectures:

Wald Lecture: Sara van de Geer

Medallion Lecturers: Frank den Hollander, Vanessa Didelez, Christina Goldschimdt, Arnaud Doucet, Pierre del Moral

 

 10th. 2021 in Seoul (South Korea), July 19-23

 Virtual Congress. There were 755 registered participants from 41 countries. For details see the Congress Program

Scientific Programme Committee:

Siva Athreya (Indian Statistical Institute)

Further members:

Nicolas Curien (Paris-Saclay University), Steven Evans (UC Berkeley), Martin Hairer (Imperial College London), Ingrid van Keilegom (KU Leuven), Runze Li (Pennsylvania State University), Kerrie Mengersen (Queensland University of Technology), Hans-Georg Müller (UC Davis), Byeong Uk Park (South Korea), Qi-Man Shao (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Masashi Sugiyama (The University of Tokyo), Alexandre Tsybakov (CREST, ENSAE, IP Paris), Ming Yuan (Columbia University), Ellen Baake (Bielefeld Universit), Ioana Dumitriu (University of Washington), Ayalvadi Ganesh (University of Bristo), Tailen Hsing (University of Michigan), Takashi Kumagai (Kyoto University), Enno Mammen (Heidelberg University),Thomas Mikosch (University of Copenhagen),Judith Rousseau, (University of Oxford), Béatrice de Tilière (University Paris Est Creteil), Maria Eulália Vares (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)

Local Organizing Committee:

Chair: Hee-Seok Oh (Seoul National University)

Further members:

Hwan Chung (Korea University), Yongho Jeon (Yonsei University), Eun Ryung Lee (Sungkyunkwan University), Young Kyung Lee (Kangwon National University), Johan Lim (Seoul National University), Insuk Seo (Seoul National University), Joong-Ho Won (Seoul National University), Kyusang Yu (Konkuk University), Woncheol Jang (Seoul National University), Panki Kim (Seoul National University),Woojoo Lee (Seoul National University), Chae Young Lim (Seoul National University), Seung Jun Shin (Korea University), Jae Keun Yoo (Ewha Womans University)

Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:

Bernoulli Lecture: Alison Etheridge

Laplace Lecture: Tony Cai

Kolmogorov Lecture: Persi Diaconis 

Lévy Lecture: Massimiliano Gubinelli

Tukey Lecture: Sara van de Geer

Joint BS-IMS special invited lectures:

Doob Lecture: Nicolas Curien

Schramm Lecture: Omer Ange

IMS Special Invited Lectures:

Blackwell Lecture: Gabor Lugosi

Wald Lecture: Martin Barlow

Medallion Lecturers:Gerard Ben Arous; Andrea Montanari; Elchanan Mossel; Laurent Saloff‑Coste; Daniela Witten

Bernoulli Paper Prize Session:

Bernoulli Prize for an outstanding survey article in Probability: Leonid Petrov

Bernoulli Journal Read Paper Award: Soutir Bandyopadhyay 

Public Lecture: Young Han Kim

 

 

11st. 2024 in Bochum (Germany), August 12-16

  Congress Program

Scientific Programme Committee:

Aurore Delaigle (Chair), University of Melbourne

Kavita Ramanan (Chair), Brown University

Further members:

Sudipto Banerjee, University of California at Los Angeles

Riddhipratim Basu, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore

Krzysztof Bogdan, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology

Holger Dette, Ruhr University Bochum

Jian Ding, Peking University

Hugo Duminil-Copin, University of Geneva

Alice Guionnet, ENS Lyons

Ruth Heller, Tel Aviv University

Nina Holden, New York University

Regina Liu, Rutgers University

Ramsés H Mena, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Andrea Montanari, Stanford University

Johanna Nešlehová, McGill University

Sofia Olhede, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Roberto Oliveira, Instituto Nacional de Matematica Pura e Aplicada, Rio de Janeiro

Mariana Olvera-Cravioto, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Valentin Patilea, École nationale de la statistique et de l'analyse de l'information (ENSAI), Bruz

Sarah Penington, University of Bath

Annie Qu, University of California at Irvine

Gareth Roberts, University of Warwick

Janice Scealy, Australian National University

Stijn Vansteelandt, Ghent University

Valeria Vitelli, University of Oslo

Hendrik Weber, University of Münster

Song Xi Chen, Peking University

Thaleia Zaripophoulou, University of Texas at Austin

 

Local Organizing Committee

Herold Dehling (Chair), Ruhr University Bochum

Further members:

Axel Bücher, Ruhr University Bochum

Holger Dette, Ruhr University Bochum

Peter Eichelsbacher, Ruhr University Bochum

Roland Fried, Technical University Dortmund

Christof Külske, Ruhr University Bochum

Christoph Thäle, Ruhr University Bochum

Anita Winter, University Duisburg-Essen

Jeannette Woerner, Technical University Dortmund

 

Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:

Bernoulli Lecture: Emmanuel Candés

Laplace Lecture: Xihong Lin

Kolmogorov Lecture: Rafal Latala 

Lévy Lecture: Rongfeng Sun

Tukey Lecture: Mihaela van der Schaar 

Cox Lecture: Victor Chernozhukov

Joint BS-IMS special invited lectures:

Doob Lecture: Pablo Ferrari

Schramm Lecture: Patricia Goncalves 

Schramm Lecture: Nina Holden


IMS Special Invited Lectures:

Wald Lecture: Peter Bühlmann

Medallion Lecturers: Moulinath Banerjee; Marc Hallin; Remco van der Hofstad; Chunming Zhang

 

Ruhr University Bochum Lecture

Ising Lecture:  Frank den Hollander

Some reminiscences and highlights of the Bernoulli meeting in Uppsala, August 13 –18, 1990

Strictly speaking, the complete heading should be Some reminiscences and highlights of “The 2nd World Congress of the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability and the 53rd Annal Meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics” .

Anyway, it all began in 1986 in Tasjkent during the First Bernoulli meeting, when Georg Lindgren approached me while I was having breakfast at Hotel Uzbekistan and asked me how I felt about having Sweden, maybe even Uppsala, arrange the second Bernoulli meeting in 1990.

It soon became clear that Uppsala was the place for this event. One reason was that we were the only ones with an aula seating more than 1500 persons; Tasjkent had around 1100 participants and we had to be prepared for a similar number.

We soon formed a formal organizing committee with a nucleus consisting of Peter Jagers, Göteborg (chairman), Georg Lindgren, Lund (vice chairman), Allan Gut, Uppsala (secretary and main local organizer), and Lars Holst, Uppsala, later Stockholm (executive member). I think none of us was quite aware of the combination of work and fun that we had ahead of us.

Some immediate practicalities that had to be taken care of were to engage a conference bureau that would be the main responsible for some of the administrative nonmathematical tasks, and to fix a convenient time period in order to make reservations for the conference venue and for hotel rooms; after all if maybe 1000 persons would come here there must be a bed available for everyone. I also contacted Orphei Drangar (http://www.od.se ), one of the most famous and successful male-voice chairs in the world, for the traditional concert. We also booked the Linnæus garden for a welcome reception and the Uppsala castle for the banquet.

Next in line was the forming of a programme committee with representatives from the various areas of probability and statistics, as well as from the various parts of the world, and then to try to find the most important, hot, or otherwise attractive topics for sessions, and then to find chairmen who were willing to organize them. We also had to start worrying about a budget and to think about organizations who were willing to support the meeting financially.

Another idea that came up, partly in order to attract people from overseas, was to make it a joint meeting with the IMS. And, indeed, the meeting turned out as The 2nd World Congress of the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability and the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and was held in Uppsala, Sweden, August 13 – 18, 1990.

At this point it might be interesting to recall the state of the art and the world. We are now back in 1987/1988. At that time there was still an iron curtain running through Europe, and computers and email was not commonplace. A letter from Uppsala to Moscow could take 2 months, in spite of the fact that an aeroplane reaches Moscow from here in 2 hours; it should also be mentioned that a letter to the US needed a week or two (although the plane only requires 6-8 hours). And sometimes letters did not arrive at all. One example was a letter of invitation that we sent twice, in vain, to Moscow. Finally we were told that someone else who was now in California would be on the east coast in about two weeks time, so we sent the letter to the east coast with the hope that it would arrive in time to be carried back to the Soviet Union in order to be handed over in person. Needless to say, letters of invitation were vital for visa purposes.

Touching upon these problems we must also remember that money from eastern Europe was not convertible, so in order to have people from there coming to Uppsala it was important to exploit the exchanges that existed between the academies of sciences in Sweden and other countries as well as exchanges between universities, such as Uppsala and Vilnius, Uppsala and Prague, Uppsala and Bucharest, and so on.

In the Fall of 1988 we sent out a preliminary announcement – via ordinary mail to a large number of researchers around the world, followed by Bulletin 1 in the spring of 1989 where it, i.a., was stated that those who preregister will get subsequent information. Also by “snail mail”.

As time went on we received the abstracts, all in all about 550 of them. Once again we must recall “the old days”. This was well before template times. Abstracts arrived in various shapes; typed, hand written, on papers of different sizes, and so on. I recall one day I was lying with my son on the living room floor with the abstracts spread out around the room in order to arrange them in alphabetical order. Then the problem came of reshaping them into an abstract booklet. For this endeavour we had tremendous help from G.P.H. Styan in Montreal who (re)typed all of them and then faxed them to me for proofreading after which I faxed them to him with corrections made after which ... But we succeeded. The abstract booklet also contained lists of speakers and sessions and so on in various orders, something that in those days was much harder to create than it is today.

I guess it is by now clear that many letters to many persons were written, and that today this would be taken care of with one single email to “undisclosed recipients”. This should not be interpreted as hidden complaints, rather as a message describing some of the changes we have experienced over the last 20 years. I would, however, at the same time stress that it was great fun and exciting to be in touch with our research community all over the planet.

A most dramatic event occurred one month prior to the meeting. On July 16 we, the four of us, were going by car downtown when a definite smell of fire struck our nostrils. I said, jokingly, “that’s just the conference bureau burning down with all our abstracts”. And, indeed, it was! Upon our arrival there we found the fire brigade in full action. Since (only) the upper floor of the house was on fire I asked for, and got, permission to enter the ground floor in order to save the paper bags with the original abstracts that, as I was told, were put underneath a certain table. As I entered I heard a telephone ringing. In the Kafka like atmosphere I felt like answering “the house is on fire, we cannot take your call right now, please call back later”. Anyway, I found the abstracts and brought them out into safety.

The talks were of the usual format with a mixture of invited and contributed papers. One invention was that we created three very special named lectures: An opening Bernoulli lecture, which was delivered by Yakov G. Sinai, a closing Kolmogorov lecture, delivered by David G. Kendall, and between those a Cramér lecture by Søren Johansen. Subsequent meetings have kept those lectures and at times added others.

The traditional concert was held on Monday evening. The above mentioned male-voice choir Orphei Drangar, all dressed in tails (the penguin outfit), entertained for about one hour with a mixed programme. This was of course a particular joy for yours truly, being an active member of the choir at that time. I know that this surprised some conference participants, because later I was approached by a few who were convinced that I was standing there faking as a kind of joke.

In addition to some guided tours for accompanying persons (and maybe also for participants who skipped talks), Wednesday afternoon was devoted to the traditional excursion. One alternative was to visit Stockholm which is reachable in less than one hour by train, one was a round trip – one way by boat and one way by bus – to the 17th century baroque palace “Skoklosters slott” (http://sko.lsh.se/ default.asp?id=4620 ), and one was a tour to some Wallonian ironwork settings north of Uppsala.

The Thursday conference banquet was held in the big hall at the Uppsala castle. In fact, since we were 750 > 600 participants we had to split the festivities into two banquets. The main problem(?) with this was that I had to enjoy the gravad lax (salmon), the reindeer and the good wines on two consecutive evenings.

There was one rather important thing that we could not arrange or prepare for – the weather. August in Sweden can be lovely but also terrible. We were extremely lucky in this respect. Participants could visit outdoor restaurants in the evenings, and the excursions could take place without additional clothing or umbrellas.

To summarize, although the first World Congress was most successfully held in Tasjkent, I think we all (in particular the four of us) felt that the Uppsala meeting was the beginning of a new era in stochastics. One very successful ingredient was the jointness with the IMS, which has broadened the scope of the meeting, well, for the meetings, I guess, it goes both ways. It was also amusing to observe how several formulations from the Bulletins that we had sent out reappeared in the bulletins of subsequent meetings.

A local additional benefit was that the conference, and even more so the organizing of it, brought probability and statistics in Sweden together in the sense that we got to know each other more closely and, somehow, almost developed into a large family, not just into a professional community.

So, all in all, it is a lot of work to organize such a meeting, but it is extremely rewarding, not only personally, but also scientifically, in that Uppsala and Sweden is not just some unknown place near or even at the arctic circle. Rather, it is now known world-wide that some high quality research is going on here. And for many years I was reminded at meetings, “Oh Uppsala, such a great meeting”; although people mostly remember the concert, the banquet, the excursion, and the pleasant weather.

So to all of you I wish to say: Don’t hesitate to host a future meeting should you be asked to do so!

Allan Gut, Uppsala

The First Bernoulli Congress

Among the remarkable events of the 80s was the First World Congress of the Bernoulli Society which was held 8–14 September 1986 in Tashkent. The preparatory work was done by the Soviet Organizing Committee (Honorary Chairman – A.N. Kolmogorov, Chairman – Yu.V. Prokhorov, Vice-Chairmen – S.Kh. Sirazhdinov and A.N. Shiryaev). The statistic of the Congress is the following: 35 scientific sections, 100 forty-minute talks, 181 fifteen -minute contributions, 430 stand posters, 15 non-formal discussions, 3 round tables on topics: “Computational methods and tools in theoretical and applied statistics”, “Relationship between theory and applications”, “Historical aspects of development of probability theory and mathematical statistics”. The Congress was opened by written “Greetings” of A.N. Kolmogorov to the participants followed by the forum talk of A.N. Kolmogorov and V.A. Uspensky (at that time A.N. Kolmogorov was very sick and could not participate in the Congress; his “Greetings” were recorded in Moscow by V.M. Tikhomirov and A.N. Shiryaev).

A.N.Shiryaev, Moscow

Greetings of A.N. Kolmogorov

“Dear ladies and gentleman! Allow me to welcome you today to the opening of the Congress.

It is significant to me that the Society that has taken the name Bernoulli, a Society uniting specialists in just one field of mathematics – probability theory and mathematical statistics – has succeeded in organizing a conference of its fellow members so representative that it is comparable to international mathematics congresses. But if one thinks about it, then one can find an explanation for this seemingly paradox phenomenon.

James Bernoulli, one of the eminent members of the Bernoulli family, has entered the pages of the history of science by virtue of his many achievements. But two of his credits should be mentioned especially. He is the father of the science of probability theory having obtained the first serious result known everywhere as Bernoulli´s theorem. But apart from this, it should not be forgotten that he was essentially also the father of combinatorial analysis. He used the elements of this discipline to prove his theorem but he delved into the field of combinatorial analysis considerably further discovering in particular the remarkable sequence of numbers which now bear his name. These numbers are encountered continually in scientific investigations right down to our time.

We all feel that one of the basic requirements of mathematics that is evident at present is the investigation of very complex systems. And this complexity on the one hand is very closely related to randomness and on the other – it necessitates in some measure an extension of combinatorial analysis itself. All this gives hope that as time passes the Bernoulli Society will increase its influence more and more in the mathematical world. I wish the participants of the Congress all of the very best.”

From: Theory Probab. Appl., Vol. 32, No.2, p. 200,
translated from Russian Journal by Bernard Seckler
© Bernoulli Society