The conference is held at the comfortable Hotel Opduin on Texel island, the Netherlands. The island is reached by ferry from the city of Den Helder, approximately 100 kilometers North of Amsterdam. Hotel Opduin is located in the dunes near the sea. It is our intention that there will be ample time and opportunity for informal discussions (e.g. during a walk in the surrounding dunes). The cost of staying at the conference hotel is about Euro 600 (single room, full board) or Euro 500 (sharing a double room, full board).

The conference starts on Sunday, 25 April, 2004. The first lecture is on Monday morning at 9:00 am. The conference ends on Thursday, 29 April, after lunch. If you arrive after 25/4, please inform us about it, so that we can make arrangements at the hotel.

If you travel by public transportation, we recommend to take the train to Den Helder (regular services from e.g. Amsterdam central station). In Den Helder there is a bus connection (Connexxion line 33) to the ferry terminal. From the arrival point on Texel island there is a bus connection to the hotel. Further information may be obtained from www.ns.nl (train services) and www.teso.nl (ferry services). Please note: to travel by bus, you need to purchase a "strippenkaart" (multi-ride card), available from ticket desks at train stations, post offices, newsagents and most tobacco shops. We recommend to buy a card with 15 "strippen", price currently Euro 6,40. When you board the bus in Den Helder, tell the bus driver that you are travelling to the village of De Koog; (s)he will then stamp the correct number of zones on your card. When you board the bus at the ferry harbour on Texel island, just show the bus driver that your card has already been stamped.

Address of the hotel: Grand Hotel Opduin, Ruyslaan 22, 1796 AD  De Koog, Texel, The Netherlands. Phone: +31-(0)222-317 445. Fax: +31-(0)222-317 777. Web: www.opduin.nl .


Participants

Participants will include: G. Böckle, F. Breuer, K. Conrad, C. Deninger, B. Edixhoven, T. Ekedahl, G. Faltings, C. Gasbarri, F. Hajir, G. Harder, U. Hartl, A.J. de Jong, T. Katsura, K. Köhler, U. Kühn, K. Künnemann, J. Lagarias, M. Morishita, Y. Miyaoka, N. Naumann, T. Oda, A.N. Parshin, D. Roessler, C. Soulé, and D. Zagier.


Call for papers

As the title indicates, the topic of the conference is the - only partially understood - analogy between number fields and function fields, in all its aspects. On the occasion of the conference we plan to publish a volume with original and high-level research papers in this area, in the Birkhäuser series Progress in mathematics. The first three Texel conferences have each led to a very succesful volume in this series: Arithmetic Algebraic Geometry, PM 89 (Oort, van der Geer and Steenbrink, eds.), The moduli space of curves, PM 129 (Dijkgraaf, Faber and van der Geer, eds.), and Moduli of Abelian Varieties, PM 195 (Faber, van der Geer and Oort, eds.).

Anyone who wishes to contribute a paper is kindly requested to contact the organizers (geer/bmoonen/schoof at science.uva.nl), as soon as possible.


Staying in the Netherlands before or after the conference

Please note: If you want to stay longer in the Netherlands, please book accomodation as early as possible. April 30 is a national holiday in the Netherlands (Queen's Day). The main cities, especially Amsterdam, attract a large number of visitors that day. As a result, it may be very hard to find accomodation, unless you book early.

Close to the mathematics department in Amsterdam are Hotel Rembrandt and  The Bridge Hotel. Further information can be obtained through the Amsterdam Tourist Board.