In celebration of our twentieth year, Budapest Semesters in Mathematics will host a gala reunion and mathematics conference for BSM alumni, mathematicians who wrote letters of recommendation for them and those people who have supported the program over the past 20 years. The meeting and conference will take place at Budapest - where else - with official programs from the 16th (Thursday) till the 22nd (Wednesday) of June, 2005. We count on the participation of ALL former BSMers, those who finally became mathematicians, and those who found some other interesting profession, and we plan our program to suit the need of all of you. We also hope that most of the former and recent BSM professors and student coordinators - who are all invited - will be able to attend the meeting, as well as many of our supporters.
First of all let us emphasize that we count on YOUR contribution to the program. It can either be any specific suggestion, contribution, or just forwarding your idea or request about a possible program - math or non-math. On the registration page you will find a dialog box for comments or suggestions, please feel free to fill it, or simply contact the appropriate person from the organizers by an e-mail (see Contact ).
The program of the conference will be divided into three parts, the first two of them, 16th (Thursday) and 17th (Friday) are planned to be plenary, for all the participants, while the third part - from the 20th (Monday) till the 22nd (Wednesday) - features a predominantly mathematics conference for interested participants and lots of cultural or other community events for those who became less interested in mathematics (mathematicians are naturally invited to these events as well).
The first day plenary meeting will hopefully bring us together again. Apart from the celebration we will have two keynote speeches by Ron Graham and Laszlo Babai, and a Hungarian folk dance performance by Csillagszemuek (www.csillagszemu.hu), a Hungarian children folk dance company. The day will be concluded by a buffet dinner on a night cruise on the Danube.
The second day is what we call the BSM day. From this day the meeting will move to the recent BSM headquarters, where we will have enough lecture rooms available to bring the classes of different years together with their professors. The structure of the day is planned accordingly (for the time being, but subject to change): the different semester groups (may be 4-8 semesters together) will meet a professor of that period in a classroom (with the possibility of meeting several professors at different time), while the classroom activity is still to be decided by the BSM Day subcommittee (see organizing committees). Howevre in case you have any further or different idea, we would appreciate if you shared it with us.
We do not plan centrally organized program for the weekend, maybe a concert or a joint movie screening. On the other hand, the local office will be happy to assist you in planning any kind of programs.
From Monday till Wednesday (20th till the 22nd) on the one hand we will have a conference of mathematics, with about six invited speakers. The participants are all invited to submit a talk (on the registration site) and we also hope that many of the BSM professors will deliver a talk. There is a plan for some less strictly mathematical lectures or sessions, either on education related stuff, or some lectures related to the history and culture of Hungary during the last 20 years. Therefore, you may submit any math related topic for your lecture, but at the same time we are looking for any fresh ideas how the scope of this conference should be adjusted.
Parallel to the math conference we will organize a series of cultural events, like visits to museums, guided city tours, meeting Hungarian artists. The tickets - if they are needed - for these events will be sold either upon the local registration or on spot. Here again, we are looking for your suggestions for any kind of events you might be interested in.
The headquarters of the conference will be the current location of BSM (Map), a historical building, formerly used as an elementary school, later as a college, and now serving as the central building of our umbrella organization, College International. Due to the summer dates most part of the building (including more than twenty lecture rooms of different sizes) will be used by us, offering plenty of space for any activities, organized by the relevant committees or the participants. The registration will take place here as well, and you can find the conference bureau here except on the first day of the conference (July 16), when events will take place in the central building of Semmelweis University, consequently on that day the registration will be there as well.
We invite all of you interested in coming to the conference to register as early as possible, even if you do not have all the required data available. Only your e-mail address is required at the first time, and you will be able to return later to complete your data. First time registrants will receive an e-mail with their login ID which they can use later to update their data.
The conference registration fee is 125 USD for early registration (up to the May 31, 2005) and 140 USD after that. Please note that the hotels we arranged special price conference rooms with will keep their special prices only up to this date and it might happen that they will not have rooms after that. The registration fee includes a weekly Budapest transportation pass, the cruising and buffet dinner on Thursday evening, buffet lunches on Thursday and Friday, coffee breaks during the conference part or cost of the central organization of the cultural events, etc. The registration fee does not include the price of tickets or other extra costs related to the individual participation on the cultural events (like entrance tickets to movies, theaters, concerts, museums, long distance coach tickets, etc.) which will be sold upon your registration. Lunch tickets for the three conference days will be sold separately by the local conference bureau during the registration days as well.
We assume there will be no usual accompanying persons, since all participants, even spouses or friends will be interested in most of the activities, so everyone should register as a normal participant.
Parallel to the math conference we will organize a series of cultural events, like visits to museums, guided city tours, meeting Hungarian artists. The tickets - if they are needed - for these events will be sold either upon the local registration or on spot. Here again, we are looking for your suggestions for any kind of events you might be interested in.
The organizers of the conference offer three types of accommodation for the guests of the Reunion: hotels, dormitory-type rooms and apartments. Specially discounted hotel prices have been arranged for you at 6 hotels of Danubius hotel chain. We especially recommend two hotels, Grand Hotel Hungaria**** and Hotel Stadion***, the first being located within walking distance from the meeting site, the second one only one subway station away, both close to the downtown as well (see the maps) and both priced reasonably. We have large number of rooms pre-booked in both of them.
Please note that though we added contact information for the hotels, discounted prices are available only if you book your room through our page. Prices are between 81 and 181 USD per room. You can find further information on the hotels, locations, rooms, prices here.
If you register on this page, we send your data (including your credit card details) to the hotel. They will contact you, and from then on you can address your requests directly to the hotel.
For those who have lower budget or special requirement we have alternative plans, dormitory type accommodation and some private apartments. City Centre Apartments offers rooms for 2-3 persons belonging to 1-3 room apartments with an equipped kitchen and 1-2 bathrooms in each. Prices are between 20 and 35 USD. You can find further information here.
Also, a limited number of furnished and equipped apartments are available at different points of Budapest via the conference bureau.
For people who wish to share a room: only one of you should book a room, please choose one that has the required number of beds. If you are booking a dormitory room and would accept anyone as roommate, please indicate so.
Well, we believe most of the participants will not need general info about Budapest. Anyway, for the newcomers: June is the beginning of the summer here, with nice, warm weather, but occasionally it might get rainy. North American citizens need no visa to enter Hungary, your valid passport is just enough for that.
Some information on banking, exchange and currency for those who have not been in Hungary for a while: Banks are generally open from 8:00 to 16.00 Monday through Thursday, and from 8:00 to 13:00 on Friday. All banks are closed at weekends and on public holidays. However, ATMs are widely accessible (they will accept most of the American cards and give Hungarian forints), and there are also plenty of currency exchange facilities (booths) in downtown Budapest. The common belief is that the safest and best deal is to simply withdraw forints (against your card from wherever of the world) from the ATMs.
Major credit cards (Visa, Master Card and Eurocard) are usually accepted (in hotels and restaurants as well). The monetary unit in Hungary is (still) one Forint (Hungarian Forint, Ft or HUF). These days bank notes are printed in values of 200, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, 10,000 and 20,000 Ft. The approximate exchange rate as of October 2004 was: EURO = 250 Ft, USD=200 Ft, but by the end of November it changed to EURO = 245 Ft, USD=185 Ft. Unfortunately a further drop of the rate of USD is expected widely. Hotels generally accept EUR or USD and they change many other currencies. In case you book your hotel via our registration page your rate IN DOLLARS is fixed, you will be charged in dollars. However, the price of the hostel and apartment type accommodations is given in HUF, a further drop in the exchange rate will effect their price (in dollars). A few restaurants and some taxis also accept EUR or USD, but in general foreign currency is not accepted in restaurants or shops.
For more detailed information we suggest the following link: http://www.tka.hu/pages/en/index.php?page_id=6