Edison and St. Cyril: Seeking Common Ground. Presentation at Honorary Degree Award Ceremony

Abstract

Rector Biolchev, Dean Mitev, and distinguished guests:

I have been trying hard in recent months to avoid listening to pompous
pronouncements about a new millennium. My instincts as a scientist and as a
mathematician tell me that this view of the passage of time is relative. After
all, this is year 1420 in the Islamic calendar, thus placing us in the 15th century,
while the Jewish calendar notes that the year is 5760 which is in the 58th century,
not the 21st.