Mathematical Colloquium

Karl Menger was born in Vienna on January 13, 1902, the only child of two gifted parents. His mother Hermione, nee Andermann (1870-1922), in addition to her musical abilities, wrote and published short stories and novelettes, while his father Carl (1840-1921) was the noted Austrian economist, one of the founders of marginal utility theory. A highly cultured man, and a liberal rationalist in the nine teenth century sense, the elder Menger had witnessed the defeat and humiliation of the old Austrian empire by Bismarck's Prussia, and the subsequent establishment under Prussian leadership of a militaristic, mystically nationalistic, state-capitalist German empire - in effect, the first modern "military-industrial complex. " These events helped frame in him a set of attitudes that he later transmitted to his son, and which included an appreciation of cultural attainments and tolerance and respect for cultural differences, com bined with a deep suspicion of rabid nationalism, particularly the German variety. Also a fascination with structure, whether artistic, scientific, philosophical, or theological, but a rejection of any aura of mysticism or mumbo-jumbo accompanying such structure. Thus the son remarked at least once that the archangels' chant that begins the Prolog im Himmel in Goethe's Faust was perhaps the most viii INTRODUCTION beautiful thing in the German language "but of course it doesn't mean anything.

Trabajos publicados en los coloquios del Dpto de matemáticas de la Universidad de Osijek entre los años 1993 y 2003.

The American Mathematical Society held its fifth colloquium in connection with its thirteenth summer meeting, under the auspices of Yale University, during the week September 3-8, 1906. This book contains the lecture notes for the three courses that were given at this colloquium: ``Introduction to a Form of General Analysis'' by Eliakim H. Moore, ``Projective Differential Geometry'' by Ernest J. Wilczynski, and ``Selected Topics in the Theory of Boundary Value Problems of Differential Equations'' by Max Mason.

Following the tradition of the American Mathematical Society, the seventh colloquium of the Society was held as part of the summer meeting that took place at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison. Two sets of lectures were presented: On Invariants and the Theory of Numbers, by L. E. Dickson, and Functions of Several Complex Variables, by W. F. Osgood. Dickson considers invariants of quadratic forms, with a special emphasis on invariants of forms defined in characteristic $p$, also called modular invariants, which have number-theoretic consequences. He is able to find a fundamental set of invariants for both settings. For binary forms, Dickson introduces semi-invariants in the modular case, and again finds a fundamental set. These studies naturally lead to the important study of invariants of the standard action of the modular group. The lectures conclude with a study of ``modular geometry'', which is now known as geometry over $\mathbf{F}_p$. The lectures by Osgood review the state of the art of several complex variables. At this time, the theory was entirely function-theoretic. Already, though, Osgood can introduce the ideas and theorems that will be fundamental to the subject for the rest of the century: Weierstrass preparation, periodic functions and theta functions, singularities--including Hartogs' phenomenon, the boundary of a domain of holomorphy, and so on.