'Keynote Address to Explore The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in Audio'

New York, July 27, 2001�The 111th AES Convention, took place November 30 - December 3, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, featured Dr. Manfred Schroeder as the distinguished lecturer for the Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture Series. Dr. Schroeder studied mathematics and physics at the University of G�ttingen in Germany, where he investigated the distribution of resonance in concert halls using microwave cavities as models. The chaotic distribution he found is now recognized as characteristic for complex (non-integrable) dynamical systems.

In 1954 Schroeder joined the research department of AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. From 1958 to 1969 he directed research at Bell on speech compression, synthesis, and recognition. Since 1969 he has also served as a Professor of Physics at G�ttingen, commuting between the University and Bell. Since 1991 he has been University Professor Emeritus.

A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the New York Academy of Sciences, Schroeder is also a founding member of the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. In the late 1950s he helped to formulate the U.S. standards for stereophonic broadcasting, now used worldwide. He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering in Washington and the G�ttingen Academy of Sciences.

In 1991 Schroeder was awarded the Gold Medal of the Acoustical Society of America for 'theoretical and practical contributions to human communication through innovative application of mathematics.' He also received the Rayleigh Medal of the British Institute of Acoustics, the Helmholtz Medal of the German Acoustical Society, and the Gold Medal of the Audio Engineering Society.

Schroeder, who holds 45 U.S. patents in speech and signal processing and other fields, is the author of three books, including: 'Number Theory in Science and Communication,' 'Fractals Chaos', 'Power Laws: Minutes from an Infinite Paradise' and 'Computer Speech: Recognition, Compression, Synthesis.'

The AES Technical Council and Board of Governors introduced the Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture in May 1999 to honor the memory of Richard Heyser, a former AES Governor and Silver Medal recipient. A scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mr. Heyser was awarded nine patents in audio and communication techniques and was widely known for his ability to clearly present new and complex technical ideas.