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In everyday language, “I see” often stands in for “I understand”. Small wonder then that visually depicted information frequently offers us insights unavailable in text or tabular form. In the present instance, the designers of these pages have endeavored to display the flow and flowering of scientific advance in the century following the birth of Alfred’s unique creation. Appropriately, this display springs from a unique perspective: the life-paths (in time and by location) taken by one hundred and forty scientists honored with the award of a Nobel Prize in their respective fields of work—all of whom have shared their insights at Lindau with tomorrow’s prospective scientific leaders. “Why this focus on geography?” some might ask. “After all, don’t modern communications and data access combine to make time and place irrelevant?” Quite the contrary. Note, in particular, that the reach and power of modern information technologies has spawned a parallel growth in the frequency and distance of the trips most of us feel necessary to keep in touch with our colleagues and the work they do. Speaking for myself, my life and work have been immeasurably enriched by personal interactions, ranging from conversations with world-famous scientists to the probing questions of curious students — an observation which I find as true in today’s internet age, as I did in the paper-based communications of my own student days. As knowledge spreads, carried by individuals in their home institutions and in their travels, Lindau offers a common time and place — one where today’s practitioners, together with the students who will follow and hopefully surpass them, can come together for the human-to-human interchanges, interchanges that the most elaborate of technologies can hardly supplant. How appropriate then, that the institution spawned by Count Lennart’s vision, now depicts the spread of scientific understanding, as it continues to catalyze its needed confluence. As participants and beneficiaries, we are all indebted to the Lindau Council and the Foundation Lindau Nobelprizewinners Meetings, and support from the International Lake Constance Conference, the German Federal State of Bavaria, and Hewlett Packard, which has made this important endeavor possible.
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