Sputnik50@EPFL

Last friday (5th October) there was this event named Spunik50@EPFL here in EPFL. The idea was largely to celebrate the remarkable scientific glory of the Sputnik launch, 50 years ago, which in many ways influenced scientific research in many fields, including communication and signal processing. But then Why EPFL? Incidentally, the EPFL Professor Martin Vetterli was also born on that Sputnik launch day. His friends and colleagues thus couldn't have thought of a better place and date to say Happy Bday to him.

Since it was happening right under my noise and being free, it didn't hurt me to go and attend the series of presentations, by some leading researchers. Most of the topic of discussion happened to be in image processing,but there were few interesting connections to my interest in communication as well, especially the one from Kannan Ramachandran from Berkeley, when he talked about 'being unorganized" and "gossiping"

The event also presented me a chance to meet Professor Gilbert Strang. His influence on me is more than what I could describe in few lines or pages. I have began to appreciate linear algebra much more than I ever comprehended to be. He was a very nice person as well to talk. He gladly obliged to chat for a few minutes and I felt good to have got that opportunity. The pleasantness in his face reminiscent itself to the way he gets involved while giving the lecture.

[1]http://www.rle.mit.edu/stir/Sputnik50/