The Club 34 of System and Control

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Photo added (original club 34 member at MIT Path Ahead Symposium 11/12-14/2009. For earlier photos of club 34 members in 2004 and 5/2009 see http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=235120

In an earlier article, I briefly mentioned the existence of the club 34 http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=235120 which is a group of persons all the in the field of system and control andall were born in the year 1934. As the old saying for wines go, “that was a vintage year”. This group of persons all had the fortune and luck that they came of age just as the modern era of control theory and applications were dawning. Consequently, they were among the firsts to take advantage of the opportunities and openings. To their credit, unlike most hot house flowers ( 薹花一现) they also had staying power. Some half a century later they are still going strong even though retired. It might be worthwhile to recount the origin and brief history of this group of persons known as the Club 34.

It was the year 1984 just before the tri-annual World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) in Budapest, Hungary, Petar Kokotovic and I were sitting and relaxing on a beach in the town of Softet (suburb of Dubronvinik) of the then Yugoslavia. We discovered that we were both born in 1934 and realized that a couple of other colleagues, Sanjoy Mitter, Karl Astrom, were also born in the same year. There we resolved that we shall meet and celebrate our sixtieth birthday ten years hence together in 1994. Club 34 was thus born (note 1). True to our pledge, in 1994 all four of us made it and were joined by additional club 34er, George Zames (since deceased) and Eugene Wong. There were parties and workshops in HongKong, Santa Barbara, and Cambridge. In 1999 at Astrom’s retirement and 65th birthday we had an informal club 34 reunion. But 2004 was our second ten-year reunion. There were parties and workshop in Hongkong, Beijing, and Xian – an all China affair – ably arranged by Professor Xiren Cao and XiaoHong Guan. During that reunion, we discussed the third reunion in 2014. It was Petar who suggested that we should not push our luck too far into the future and that 2009 might be a better goal.As a result, the first of the workshop and birthday party took place in Santa Barbara in 5/09 (see the above URL for description).The second birthday [party (for Mitter) took placeat MIT in Nov. 2009.This december,in conjunction with the annual International IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, popularly known as the CDC, in Shanghai, China thethird birthday party and workshop will take place on 12/14/09. I am looking forward to it. Note 1. Of course there are others in the field also born in 1934. Murray Wonham of Canada who dislikes travel and parties is an honorary member Club 34 @ MIT Nov. 2009