R. V. M. Zahar* The sixty-fifth birthday of Walter Gautschi provided an opportune moment for an international symposium in his honor, to recognize his many contributions to mathematics and computer sciences. Conceived by John Rice and sponsored by Purdue University, the conference took place in West Lafayette from December 2 to 5, 1993, and was organized around the four main themes representing Professor Gautschi's principal research interests: Approximation, Orthogonal Polynomials, Quadrature and Special Functions. Thirty-eight speakers - colleagues, co-authors, research collaborators or...