The Bethe Ansatz

• Hans A. Bethe, for the hour in his office in early 1994, and his lasting tip You haff to vork fery feeery haaaaart!
• L. Vinet, for helping me substitute undergraduate condensed matter courses (the horror!) for a postgraduate "special topics" course (given by R. Weston) on quantum groups and the vertex operator approach, and for having ordered me to just sit on your … and write everything down, one day you'll understand
• A. Tsvelik, who as my doctoral supervisor really lived up to somebody who could really do this when it came to integrable models; the semi-private course he gave on this in the autumn of 1994 in his office in Brasenose College has for me been career-defining
• H. Saleur, who from Les Houches 1998 onwards has been my go-to father figure (at least for integrable field theory)
• J. M. Maillet, who by forcing me to spend at least minimal time in Lyon (when diapers pinned me home) initiated a very focused and determined period in my research work, and an even longer-lasting friendship
• M. Gaudin, whose book (in French!) helped my doctoral mind crystallize in the right way, and who later showed me such kindness and consideration when I tried to bring his work to a wider audience by translating it into English
• B. McCoy for the numerous hours of inspiring discussions on the science but also the past (and future!) history of the field
• L. Faddeev, whose self-invitation for a stay in Amsterdam after attending a talk of mine resulted in some memorable exchanges with countless insights and historical anectodes (and a wonderful portrait I still need to print properly).

[to be completed]