It is usual to explain that the development of culture and science in our European civilisation has its foundational basis in the Greco-Roman legacy and the Renaissance and that it was the great European universities (London, Paris, Bologna,...) that were the forerunners of the main advances. However, this was not the case, or at least it was not only these universities. Spain, and in particular Toledo, during the 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th centuries played a key role in achieving these advances for the rest of the continent. This city treasured the knowledge of Islamic and Jewish science and cultures, and it was the Toledo School of Translators, as well as King Alfonso X, who largely established this line of knowledge transmission from the last quarter of the Middle Ages until the Renaissance. The recovery of Greek and Latin knowledge and culture added to the wisdom accumulated by the Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate, made possible the transmission of significant scientific treatises and the great works of philosophy that had hitherto been unknown in Europe.
This year marks the 8th centenary of Alfonso X in Toledo (1221-1284). The City Council and other institutions have organised various events to mark the occasion. Alfonso X, the Wise King, was a forerunner whose rich and immense legacy, covering disciplines as varied as literature, justice, medicine and music, favoured enormous progress in subsequent centuries for the integral human development and well-being of his people. His work encompasses all branches of knowledge. He decoupled scientific work from the Latin-Western educational programme. He presented scientific research with an open-minded attitude free from the philosophical and theological questions that were so hotly debated in the universities of northern Europe. He was ahead of his time, a legislator and educator, a man of science and, directly related to this, perhaps most importantly, he was the creator of a new language, Castilian, a nexus of union highly praised by Muslims, Jews and Christians.
The scale of his advances in science and particularly in mathematics were extraordinary. They are today's heritage of excellence for the city of Toledo. Arithmetic, Geometry or the incipient Probability Theory, as well as a multitude of advances in Engineering, were extended from Toledo to the whole world. Azarquiel, Gerard of Cremona, Rabi Çag and Juanelo Turriano are, among others, illustrious names that channelled this pioneering development of mathematics in Europe and whose link with Toledo and Alfonso X is undeniable.
Today, the University of Castilla-La Mancha, the Regional Ministry of Education and other local and regional institutions are the levers available to our society to follow the humanistic path proposed by the Wise King. In the context of the university, and specifically within the scientific and technological fields, we would like to announce today our intentions to hold an event to promote the development of mathematical knowledge.
It is a workshop on non-local differential equations and optimisation. The content and importance of the findings, discussions, as well as the interconnection proposed by this event, are nothing more than an extension of the Alphonsian spirit. Without claiming to be forerunners of anything in particular, but by opening the doors, as far as we can, to great talents from here and there, the congress will provide us with the opportunity to join forces. It will enlarge the window through which we can look out to learn how to perfect skills, and enable us to apply them to an increasingly complex reality.