Foreword to the Memorial Issue of prof. Miloslav Havlíček

Abstract

Miloslav Havlíček
2. 11. 1938 - 4. 9. 2024

This issue of Acta Polytechnica is dedicated to the memory of Professor Miloslav Havlíček who passed away a year ago. The role of this introduction is not to recollect his carrier; for that we refer to the biographical sketch by Rutwig Campoamor Stursberg. Our aim is rather to recall Miloslav's vital role in the birth and growth of mathematical physics activities in our country. 
Being a disciple of Professor Votruba, he belonged to the generation of the first graduates of the newly founded Faculty of Technical and Nuclear Physics. As the most mathematically orientated among them, he always strove for a rigorous approach to physical problems. This came naturally in the 1960s when algebraic problems, close to his heart, were symbiotic with the quantum theory, but he kept this attitude for all his life irrespective of how the scientific scene was changing. What mattered was his "attractive force“, the ability to gather a group of peers and young people who share common interests. 
This was not without obstacles and not only due to his physical handicap coming from an infliction he suffered at the adolescent age, but also due to the adversity of some politically reinforced colleagues in the two horrible decades. Despite the bad weather, he founded at the end of that period a mathematical physics seminar which exists today and is one of the focal points of the discipline in our country. When the regime changed and he was called to restore the proper academic environment, he founded around the seminar the Doppler Institute for mathematical physics, which has flourished now for more than thirty years. 
The importance of Miloslav's work for our mathematical physics community is difficult to overestimate. His openness to new ideas and ability to get to the core of the problem helped two generations grow and find their place in the research landscape. We remember him with deep gratitude.