Ischia group theory conference 2024

The island of Ischia, about a 45-minute hydrofoil ride from Napoli, is rich in history. The museum has a Homeric drinking cup with an inscription in ancient Greek from the 8th century BCE. At the other end of history, the British composer Sir William Walton and his Argentine wife Susana bought a desolate hilltop producing only myrtle scrub, and turned it into one of the finest gardens in Italy.

More relevant is the fact that, for the last two decades, it has hosted the biennial Ischia group theory conference, organised by mathematicians from the University of Salerno, just down the coast a bit beyond Amalfi.

Salerno, incidentally, may have a claim to be the oldest university in Italy. Around the end of the first millennium, the Schola Medica Salernitana flourished, specialising in patching up pilgrims and crusaders on the way back from Palestine, and sending them on their way with good medical advice.

The conference was dedicated to Otto Kegel, a regular at Ischia, whose 90th birthday approaches this summer. (Otto was unable to be at the meeting for health reasons, but attended many sessions on Zoom.) But as a sign of the times, half a dozen sessions were dedicated to mathematicians who have died in the last couple of years, including Bertram Huppert (d. 1 October 2023), Nikolai Vavilov (d. 14 September 2023), Zvonimir Janko (d. 12 April 2022), and Rex Dark (d. late 2022). Of course, there are others, including Richard Parker (d. 16 January 2024), Anatoly Vershik (d. 14 February 2024) and Colin Mallows (d. 4 November 2023), though perhaps the last two would not be regarded as “group theorists”.

Among many great lectures at the conference, I would nominate as my favourite the talk in memory of Zvonimir Janko by Gernot Stroth. This brought back the heady days of the 1960s and 1970s, when I was just beginning as a mathematician, and new sporadic simple groups were being found under every lamp-post. I remember on one occasion arriving at the old DPMMS building in Cambridge, when the team there had just finished the construction of J₄; the notice on Conway’s door said, simply, ∃J₄. (Janko’s fourth sporadic simple group, for the uninitiated.)

Apart from the conference dinner, the memorable social events were a recital of traditional Neapolitan songs by a singer/guitarist and a mandolin player (it struck me that there is a parallel between this music and Portuguese fado, especially Coimbra fado, the mandolin substituting for the Portuguese guitar); a concert of baroque flute and cello music in Chieso Santa Maria di Portosalvo on the harbour (my favourite, of course, the first movement of Bach’s cello suite in G); and a visit to the Waltons’ Giardin La Mortella, on its hilltop at the north of the island, with stunning flowers at this time of year.

The main thing detracting from my pleasure was the fact that I was suffering from a miserable cold the whole time, in common with my family, students, and probably a good part of the population of Britain.