Polynomial interpolation in several variables

1 0. PREAMBLE I want to thank the organizers for inviting me to this meeting as it gives me the opportunity to help celebrate Sam Conte who gave me my rst academic job. More than that, he provided my children with many years of summer camp in the wilds of New Hampshire and Wisconsin, and at least two of them think that those summers in New Hampshire were essential for their growing up (and I tend to agree with them). Now I realize that Sam does not yet know what I am talking about, so I will explain. I was young and impetuous when I came to Purdue, and ready to complain about everything, including the courses I had to teach and the books I had to use. Sam's textbook was not exempted from these gratuitous comments. But, instead of becoming miied or angry, Sam merely invited me to work with him on a revision. Now, that may have ruined the book, as far as Sam is concerned, for it made it a much harder book. But it and a later edition have continued to sell enough copies to allow me the luxury of sending my children to summer camps in faraway places, and for that my children and I will forever be grateful.