Book excerpt: Speech by Toyosaburo Taniguchi Welcome my friends to the Third International Symposium, Division on the Theory of Condensed Matter, of the Taniguchi Foundation. The need is now greater than ever for Japan to consider how to strengthen and foster international understanding between nations, peoples and societies, and how to contribute towards the establishment of peace and prosperity in the world. For more than twenty years, I have been supporting a symposium on mathe matics in which distinguished scholars from allover the world have engaged in free discussions. In this symposium, all the participants live together in community style. I have heard from members of some of these study groups that this type of setup has helped to strengthen their ties and relationships with their colleagues on a personal basis. What developed in the mathematics group led me to reorganize and strengthen the Taniguchi Foundation only a few years ago through additional funding. In order to effectively translate the objectives of the Foundation into action with the funds available, it becomes necessary to select those fields which are not necessarily in the limelight of popular interest, which means those fields which, I am afraid, are low in funding. I would rather choose from modest unimpressive academic fields than for the Foundation, projects those that stand out in gaudy, gorgeous popular acclaim.