... an outstanding student except, despite his efforts, in gymnastics and especially in everything that had to do with hand dexterity: drawing and handicrafts were almost torture for him. ... That clumsiness, known to lesser degrees in other members of his paternal line, was graded in a singular fact: as a child he decided one day to sleep with his shoes on so as not to have to tie them again. It is not known how many times he had slept like this until the night his mother surprised him.

Dr Grandjot, as his students called him, arrived in Chile on the 1 May 1929, from Germany, hired by the Government to "provide his services as a Mathematics Professor in the educational establishments of the Republic. He would have the obligation to serve up to fifteen hours a week of classes, including seminars." Upon arriving, he began teaching "classes on Higher and Elementary Mathematics, Philosophy and Physics at the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Chile."

Rolando led a quiet and orderly life, logic and mathematics consumed almost all his free time, but there was always something left for reading a religious subject, going to mass with devotion and for music.

In the 6th year Rolando had made a double decision: on the one hand, to dedicate himself to mathematics and, on the other, to finish his medical degree.

The calculus of probability is applied to happenings or occurrences. That is, to situations that involve some change. Some of the situations are experiments or observations, such as: the tossing of a coin once, the tossing of a coin 100 times, the arranging of a deck of cards, the computing of the nth digit of the decimal expansion of π, the observation of the lifespan of a radioactive atom or a person, the selection of a sample of people and the observation of the number of left-handers in it. Others are natural phenomena, such as: the birth of a baby, telephone calls, accidents, the diffusion of a particle.

The essential element in all these examples is change. There is an initial state of affairs that changes to another state of affairs. I shall call all situations of this sort experiments. What we are interested in, in all experiments, from the point of view of the calculus of probability, is the result or outcome of the experiment. We want to know what the outcome of the experiment will be, or was. In some cases we can predict it with certainty. In others, we cannot. It is in the latter case that the calculus of probability is important. But even in this case we know something or at least we suppose that we know something. We know what the possible outcomes are. Of course, there is only one actual outcome of any experiment; but there are many possible outcomes when the result is not certain.

There have been discussions from time to time of "abstract measures" the values of which need not be numerical. One of the purposes of this paper is to present arguments in favour of the use of cardinal algebras as values for these measures. Cardinal algebras were introduced and developed by A Tarski in 'Cardinal algebras' (1949). They have many of the good properties of real numbers and arise naturally ...

The Pinochet regime had been in power for just a year when Tarski visited in 1974-75. A military coup had ousted the duly elected president Salvador Allende, who had been attempting to implement a socialist programme. Following the coup, Allende disappeared; it was officially stated that he had committed suicide but widely believed that he had been murdered. As a consequence of these events, many people fled the country in fear or dismay. Chuaqui himself had been criticised by some of his colleagues for remaining in Chile. So the very fact that Tarski had come at that time made all the Chilean academics who were still there - carrying on as best they could - grateful to him, because many foreigners had refused invitations and had tried to discourage others from accepting. As a matter of principle, Tarski rarely refused his presence or his recommendation based upon political differences. The notable exceptions were due to egregious anti-Semitic behaviour. Recreational travel, as one would expect, was an important part of Tarski's stay in Chile. Guided by the Chuaqui family, including their three young children, Alfred and Maria toured many of the high points of the country both in the north and the south - not to climb but at least to view the mountains and do some easy hikes. They drove to the coast and there, on Valentine's Day, Tarski was invited to tea at the home of Eduardo Frei Montalva, the president who had preceded Allende. Tarski felt much honoured by that invitation.

Rolando Chuaqui did not stand out only as a scientist and manager of national mathematical development, he was also a man of great human qualities. His fruitful work in so many fields could be carried out thanks to an extraordinary capacity for work. He used to spend hours in front of his computer writing either mathematics papers, reports or class notes. The way to rest for him was simply to change the subject. Aware of the leading role he had to play in the academic environment, he was able to overcome his timid nature to convince the authorities of the importance of science in the development of the country and put into practice the numerous projects in which he participated. He was an extremely kind and simple person. His door was always open to receive anyone who needed to speak to him, from the most important authority, to the novice student and the most modest official. Deeply Catholic, his faith was not based on his great intellectual capacity nor on his doctrinal knowledge, but on an almost naive conviction. For him, this was a Truth that needed no justification.

The Bachelor's programme must provide basic training in the main branches of mathematics, whether it is a specialisation in an area of immediate application, or an in-depth study that allows the student to continue their training as a researcher. In any case, the programme must be made up of a reduced number of core courses, in such a way that no more than four courses per semester can be followed. This is due in part to the greater importance of mathematical maturity over the extent of knowledge.