I guess every working life has some milestones. My first one was in 1975 when I graduated in electronics engineering. After a good year of military service I found myself a job at the medical department in Leiden in a lively group doing advanced cancer research. Then, in 1982 I started pursuing my physics education at Leiden University and finished that in 1990 with a PhD in Theoretical Physics. To my own surprise, and joy, I spent the next 10 years in the Physical Chemistry group at Leiden Univeristy. On 1 January 2000 I moved to Delft and became part of the Chemical Engineering department.

But the most important milestone actually turned out to be my illness that started in 2015 and took a few years to conquer. I am over it now, but in hindsight it was a complete brain wash. Luckily, the department accommodated well for my needs and lessened abilities. I am very grateful for that and I thank those that still made me feel at home, in particular the ASM group members.

It turned out that my teaching duties were completely taken over. But lecture time was still reserved for me and I started to teach advanced courses. For limited groups of students that were all enthusiastic about the material I presented and had them work on. That was really great fun. I did some regular teaching to substitute for a colleague that had to leave but that served to make it clear to me that I was no longer able to do that sort of mass education.

The latest course I gave was on a topic known as non-equilibrium or irreversible thermodynamics. I was actually persuaded to do this by some students and some colleagues. That was great fun, both times I gave the course. The lecture notes I cast in the form of an e-booklet entitled Perspectives on Molecular Thermodynamics. You can find it on ResearchGate. For some colleagues that I trust will read in it, I made a paper copy that was sent to them some week ago. This is now my farewell present to the academic society I will leave today.

I thank you all for being part of my professional life!

Ger Koper, 5 June 2020