Foreword

Abstract

The idea of grouping a few texts devoted to the evocation of the life of Edith Miiller came from a pleasant walk, in the sunny fall of 1996, along the beaches of the Rio de la Plata, in front of Montevideo, with Ramiro de la Reza. Edith had been, for so many of us in the world, not only an excellent colleague, but a good friend, that it became immediately obvious that the idea was quite appropriate, certainly still more for her, who had friends all over the world, than for many others. Soon, this project become more precise, with the enlargement of our little nucleus to Yves Chmielewski, her former student in Geneva, like Ramiro, Gustav Tammann, her almost neighbour in Basel, Immo Appenzeller, her... “grand-grand ....-grand son”, in his capacity of General Secretary of the IAU, and finally Patrick Wayman, who succeeded Edith as General Secretary and who accepted to improve the English of these very diverse texts....