Greetings Recorded in santa barbara David gross Hi Claudio Good to see you. I am sorry I am not able to be there for your birthday. Jackie and I really loved our visit last year, and I am sure we would have enormously enjoyed what I expect will be a great party, but at the moment we have a previous engagement somewhere in Thailand. I have known Claudio since he was a mere lad of 22, a young graduate student of ohnnie Wheeler when I first came to Princeton. He then stayed on as an Assistant Professor. so i have known him for more than half of his life. After princeton he went to Texas and a few years later, much to my surprise, returned to Chile, first on a part time basis, and then full time. I must say that at the time I was surprised and amazed that he did this. I really admired him for his courage and dedication in going back to Chile to help build science at such a very difficult and dangerous time I was delighted over the years to visit Claudio at the institute that he established in Santiago and later in Valdivia. I tried to do the little I could do to help him in his remarkable leadership in developing science in Chile and in healing the wounds of hard times Claudio Teitelboim is truly a great scientist and a great statesman of science He has helped to transform Chilean science. I have enormous respect for him and all that he has achieved and I just wish that I was there in person to offer him my congratulations. I cannot be in Chile, so from afar, congratulations Claudio! To paraphrase a well known Hebrew saying that is often said on such occasions until 120. You are already half way there, so enjoy the rest, the second half Best of wishes David gross I Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA, e-mail: gross@kitp. ucsb. edu M. Henneaux, J Zanelli(eds ) Quantum Mechanics of Fundamental Systems: The Quest for Beauty and Simplicity. DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-87499-9-1 C Springer Science+Business Media LLC 2009Greetings Recorded in Santa Barbara David Gross1 Hi Claudio, Good to see you. I am sorry I am not able to be there for your birthday. Jackie and I really loved our visit last year, and I am sure we would have enormously enjoyed what I expect will be a great party, but at the moment we have a previous engagement somewhere in Thailand. I have known Claudio since he was a mere lad of 22, a young graduate student of Johnnie Wheeler when I first came to Princeton. He then stayed on as an Assistant Professor, so I have known him for more than half of his life. After Princeton he went to Texas and a few years later, much to my surprise, returned to Chile, first on a part time basis, and then full time. I must say that at the time I was surprised and amazed that he did this. I really admired him for his courage and dedication in going back to Chile to help build science at such a very difficult and dangerous time. I was delighted over the years to visit Claudio at the institute that he established in Santiago and later in Valdivia. I tried to do the little I could do to help him in his remarkable leadership in developing science in Chile and in healing the wounds of previous hard times. Claudio Teitelboim is truly a great scientist and a great statesman of science. He has helped to transform Chilean science. I have enormous respect for him and all that he has achieved and I just wish that I was there in person to offer him my congratulations. I cannot be in Chile, so from afar, congratulations Claudio! To paraphrase a well known Hebrew saying that is often said on such occasions “until 120”. You are already half way there, so enjoy the rest, the second half. Best of wishes, Bye David Gross 1 Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA, e-mail: gross@kitp.ucsb.edu M. Henneaux, J. Zanelli (eds.), Quantum Mechanics of Fundamental Systems: The Quest 3 for Beauty and Simplicity, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-87499-9 1, c Springer Science+Business Media LLC 2009