The beginnings of symplectic topology in Bochum in the early eighties

Abstract

I outline the history and the original proof of the Arnold conjecture on fixed points of Hamiltonian maps for the special case of the torus, leading to a sketch of the proof for general symplectic manifolds and to Floer homology. This is the written version of my talk at the Geometric Dynamics Days 2017 (February 3-4) at the RUB in Bochum.