Notes

Abstract

THE sixth International Congress of Mathematicians is being held this week at Strasbourg. It is eight years since the last congress was held at Cambridge, and it will be noted with regret that the then honorary president, Lord Rayleigh, and the president, Sir George Darwin, are no longer with us. The present meeting was fixed for this year at the Allied Conference of Scientific Societies held in Brussels in July, 1919; its organisation has been in the hands of the Comito National Frangais de Mathématique, of which M. Emile Picard is president, and of a local organising committee (president, M. Villat). On Wednesday, after the congress had been formally opened by M. Alapetite, Commissaire Général de la Republique, the members proceeded to elect their president and other officers. In the evening a reception was held by the organising committee in the Salle des Fetes. In the course of the meeting lectures are being given by Sir Joseph Larmor (Thursday), Prof. L. E. Dickson (Friday), M. de la Vallée-Poussin (Saturday), M. Volterra (Tuesday morning next), and M. Nörlund (Tuesday afternoon). On Friday evening Gen. Tauflieb will give an address on “Science in Alsace.” Conducted visits have been arranged to the cathedral and the museums, and excursions to the ports of Strasbourg and Kehl, to Saverne, and to Linge. At the end of the proceedings on Tuesday, September 28, the members will be entertained at a banquet kindly given by the organising committee. There is every prospect of a successful meeting, and it is anticipated that the members will have much of interest to communicate after being out of touch with each other for so long a period. On the eve of a new academic session English mathematicians are finding some difficulty in attending; only ten entries have so far been recorded from the United Kingdom.