********************************** Special Seminar ******************************* Title: What is K-theory and Why Should I be interested in it? Speaker: Claude Schochet, Wayne State University Time: Sunday 21.3 at 16:30 Room: Amado 919 Abstract: One of the primary characteristics of mathematics research in the last fifty years has been the increasing inter-connection between areas of mathematics that were once thought to be separate. The Four Color Theorem, Fermat^Òs Theorem, and the Poincare Conjecture were solved using methods and techniques that ^Ójumped barriers^Ô between fields. K-Theory, developed in the 1960^Òs by Atiyah, Bott, Hirzebruch, Karoubi, and Singer to study certain classical problems in partial differential equations, used algebraic topology to great effect. In turn, Brown-Douglas-Fillmore, Kasparov, Pimsner-Voiculescu, and Connes used K-theory and methods of functional analysis to prove important results in operator algebras and (unexpectedly) algebraic topology. This led to an explosion of activity in the classification of simple C*-algebras, dynamical systems, and quasiperiodic tilings in mathematical physics. Quantum mechanics, string theory and M-theory also are tied into the story. My talk will be elementary. I will introduce the K-theory groups, explain their analytic and topological faces, and give some examples and a few theorems to try to illustrative the diverse nature of the subject matter. This talk is rated G: graduate students are very welcome. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Professor Baruch Solel Department of Mathematics Technion Haifa 32000, Israel Phone: 972-4-8294093 Fax : 972-4-8293388 --------------------------------------------------------- Technion Math. Net (TECHMATH) Editor: Gershon Wolansky Announcement from: Baruch Solel