Mathematical Survey Lectures 1943-2004

In my long professional life as a mathematician I have had to deliver various survey lectures. They were of different character according to the occasion. A selected number are reproduced in this volume. They were, with few exceptions, printed in books or in periodicals, and are reproduced here without any modification. I started as a student at the ETH Zurich in 1935 and have spent my working Ufe there, with the exception of the period 1942-1948 (lecturer then associate professor at the Univers