What I learned from Brian

Abstract

For more than forty years I have learned from Brian Randell, in the first seven years by studying his writings, and later by many enjoyable and insightful personal interactions. On April 7, 2011 I had the privilege to present the after-dinner speech on the occasion of Brian's 75 th birthday party. Since a British after dinner speech is a very special event, I was awaiting this evening with a lot of excitement. The following notes summarize the main ideas of this after dinner talk. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.