On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Hermann Grassmann (1809-1877), an interdisciplinary conference was held in Potsdam, Germany, and in Grassmann's hometown Szczecin, Poland. The idea of the conference was to present a multi-faceted picture of Grassmann, and to uncover the complexity of the factors that were responsible for his creativity. The conference demonstrated not only the very influential reception of his work at the turn of the 20th century, but also the unexpected modernity of his ideas, and their continuing development in the 21st century....