Bilinear Integrable Systems: from Classical to Quantum, Continuous to Discrete: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Bilinear Integrable Systems: From Classical to Quantum, Continuous to Discrete St. Petersburg, Russia, 15-19 September 2002

On April 29, 1814 Napoleon landed on the island of Elba, surrounded with a personal army of 1200 men. The allies, Russia, Prussia, England and Austria, hadforcedhimintoexileafteranumberofverycostlydefeats;hewasdeprived ofallhistitles,butcouldkeepthetitleof"EmperorofElba". Historytellsusthat each morning he took long walks in the sun, reviewed his army each midday anddiscussedworldmatterswithnewlyappointedadvisors,followingthesame pattern everyday, to the great surprise of Campbell, the British of?cer who was to keep an eye on him. All this made everyone believe he was settled there for good. Napoleononcesaid:Elbaisbeautiful,butabitsmall. Elbawasde?nitely a source of inspiration; indeed, the early morning, March 6, 1815, Metternich, the chancellor of Austria was woken up by one of his aides with the stunning news that Napoleon had left Elba with his 1200 men and was marching to Paris with little resistance; A few days later he took up his throne again in the Tuileries. In spite of his insatiable hunger for battles and expansion, he is remembered as an important statesman. He was a pioneer in setting up much of the legal, administrative and political machinery in large parts of continental Europe. We gathered here in a lovely and quaint ?shing port, Marciana Marina on theislandofElba,tocelebrateoneofthepioneersofintegrablesystems,Hirota Sensei,andthisattheoccasionofhisseventiethbirthday. Trainedasaphysicist in his home university Kyushu University, Professor Hirota earned his PhD in '61 at Northwestern University with Professor Siegert in the ?eld of "Quantum Statistical mechanics". He wrote a widely appreciated Doctoral dissertation on "FunctionalIntegralrepresentationofthegrandpartitionfunction".