Lodewijk Woltjer Lecture

Prof. Wolfgang Hillebrandt was born in 1944. He studied physics and mathematics at the University of Cologne were he obtained his PhD in 1973. After some time at Caltech in California and some at the Technical University of Darmstadt, he joined the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Munich in 1978 and then Garching, where he became director. He is Honorary Professor at the Technische Universität München.

Prof. George Miley was born in 1942 and has dual Irish and Dutch nationality. He studied at University College Dublin and obtained his PhD in 1968 from the University of Manchester, home of the Jodrell Bank radio telescope. He joined the staff of Leiden University in 1970 and has spent several years in the US, including 4 years on the staff of the Space Telescope Science Institute. Prof. Miley is the initiator of the "Universe Awareness" programme aimed to inspire economically disadvantaged children with astronomy and, as IAU Vice President, he has recently led the development of the IAU Strategic Plan 2010 - 2020, "Astronomy for the Developing World".

Professor Lodewijk Woltjer is one of Europe's outstanding astronomers of the second half of the twentieth century. First of all Lodewijk Woltjer made significant contributions to theoretical astrophysics, from his fundamental work on the Crab nebula and his studies on hydromagnetic equilibrium to the energy source of Radio Galaxies and Quasars. After serving as chairman at the Astronomy Department of Columbia University in New York, a position he held for ten years, Lodewijk Wolter in 1975 became Director General of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Under his leadership ESO established itself as one of the world's leading astronomical institutes.

Lodewijk Woltjer realised with great foresight what needed to be done in order for Europe to bridge the gap that existed in observational astronomy with other countries. He initiated the development of new instrumentation and telescope technology whose highlight, the Very Large Telescope, has become the world's most successful ground- based observatory and has re-established Europe's leadership in observational optical astronomy.

Twenty years ago Lodewijk Woltjer initiated the foundation of the European Astronomical Society and became its first president. A few years later Lodewijk Woltjer became president of the International Astronomical Union.