The hundred and fifty years before the Protestant Reformation used to be seen as a period of religious decadence. More recently, they have been understood as an era of rather anxious piety, in which the faithful purchased indulgences, went on pilgrimage, and engaged in a variety of superstitious practices to ward off the ills of a violent society. Yet the prominence of blood in the cult, prayers, art, and theological disputes characteristic of the period has been ignored.

Pierre Deligne, Professor Emeritus, School of Mathematics. On the occasion of the sixty-first birthday of Pierre Deligne, the School of Mathematics will be hosting a four-day conference, "Geometry and Arithmetic" from October 17 to October 20, 2005.

Thomas Spencer, Professor, School of Mathematics

Robert P. Langlands, Professor Emeritus, School of Mathematics. There are several central mathematical problems, or complexes of problems, that every mathematician who is eager to acquire some broad competence in the subject would like to understand, even if he has no ambition to attack them all. That would be out of the question!