Acknowledgements
The author is greatly indebted to many people who have made this book possible: to generations of doctoral students Danny Beyens, Marina Vanhecke, Nadine
Bongaerts, Brigitte Coninckx, Ingrid Vos, Geert Vandenberghe, Geert Gojiens, Tom
Maes, Goedele Heylen, Bruno Titeca, Sven Bovin, Ken Somers, Steven Compernolle, Erwin Lijnen, Sam Moors, Servaas Michielssens, Jules Tshishimbi Muya,
and Pieter Thyssen; to postdocs Amutha Ramaswamy, Sergiu Cojocaru, Qing-Chun
Qiu, Guang Hu, Ru Bo Zhang, Fanica Cimpoesu, Dieter Braun, Stanislaw Walçerz,
Willem Van den Heuvel, and Atsuya Muranaka; to the many colleagues who have
been my guides and fellow travellers to the magnificent viewpoints of theoretical
understanding: Brian Hollebone, Tadeusz Lulek, Marek Szopa, Nagao Kobayashi,
Tohru Sato, Minh-Tho Nguyen, Victor Moshchalkov, Liviu Chibotaru, Vladimir
Mironov, Isaac Bersuker, Claude Daul, Hartmut Yersin, Michael Atanasov, Janette
Dunn, Colin Bates, Brian Judd, Geoff Stedman, Simon Altmann, Brian Sutcliffe,
Mircea Diudea, Tomo Pisanski, and last but not least Patrick Fowler, companion
in many group-theoretical adventures. Roger B. Mallion not only read the whole
manuscript with meticulous care and provided numerous corrections and comments,
but also gave expert insight into the intricacies of English grammar and vocabulary. I am very grateful to L. Laurence Boyle for a critical reading of the entire
manuscript, taking out remaining mistakes and inconsistencies.
I thank Pieter Kelchtermans for his help with LaTeX and Naoya Iwahara for
the figures of the Mexican hat and the hexadecapole. Also special thanks to Rita
Jungbluth who rescued me from everything that could have distracted my attention
from writing this book. I remain grateful to Luc Vanquickenborne who was my
mentor and predecessor in the lectures on group theory at KULeuven, on which this
book is based. My thoughts of gratitude extend also to both my doctoral student, the
late Sam Eyckens, and to my friend and colleague, the late Philip Tregenna-Piggott.
Both started the journey with me but, at an early stage, were taken away from this
life.
My final thanks go to Monique.
ix
The author is greatly indebted to many people who have made this book possible: to generations of doctoral students Danny Beyens, Marina Vanhecke, Nadine
Bongaerts, Brigitte Coninckx, Ingrid Vos, Geert Vandenberghe, Geert Gojiens, Tom
Maes, Goedele Heylen, Bruno Titeca, Sven Bovin, Ken Somers, Steven Compernolle, Erwin Lijnen, Sam Moors, Servaas Michielssens, Jules Tshishimbi Muya,
and Pieter Thyssen; to postdocs Amutha Ramaswamy, Sergiu Cojocaru, Qing-Chun
Qiu, Guang Hu, Ru Bo Zhang, Fanica Cimpoesu, Dieter Braun, Stanislaw Walçerz,
Willem Van den Heuvel, and Atsuya Muranaka; to the many colleagues who have
been my guides and fellow travellers to the magnificent viewpoints of theoretical
understanding: Brian Hollebone, Tadeusz Lulek, Marek Szopa, Nagao Kobayashi,
Tohru Sato, Minh-Tho Nguyen, Victor Moshchalkov, Liviu Chibotaru, Vladimir
Mironov, Isaac Bersuker, Claude Daul, Hartmut Yersin, Michael Atanasov, Janette
Dunn, Colin Bates, Brian Judd, Geoff Stedman, Simon Altmann, Brian Sutcliffe,
Mircea Diudea, Tomo Pisanski, and last but not least Patrick Fowler, companion
in many group-theoretical adventures. Roger B. Mallion not only read the whole
manuscript with meticulous care and provided numerous corrections and comments,
but also gave expert insight into the intricacies of English grammar and vocabulary. I am very grateful to L. Laurence Boyle for a critical reading of the entire
manuscript, taking out remaining mistakes and inconsistencies.
I thank Pieter Kelchtermans for his help with LaTeX and Naoya Iwahara for
the figures of the Mexican hat and the hexadecapole. Also special thanks to Rita
Jungbluth who rescued me from everything that could have distracted my attention
from writing this book. I remain grateful to Luc Vanquickenborne who was my
mentor and predecessor in the lectures on group theory at KULeuven, on which this
book is based. My thoughts of gratitude extend also to both my doctoral student, the
late Sam Eyckens, and to my friend and colleague, the late Philip Tregenna-Piggott.
Both started the journey with me but, at an early stage, were taken away from this
life.
My final thanks go to Monique.
ix