University of Hawaii Mathematics Department

Distinguished Lecture Series

March 8, 9, 10, 2006


The Distinguished Lecture Series is a series of three lectures. The first lecture is intended for a general audience. This year the lectures will be given by:


Paul Frank Baum

Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics
Pennsylvania State University


Mathematical Impossibilities

Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - 4:00 pm - Crawford 115
Reception 3:00 pm - Executive Dining Room in Campus Center

This lecture explains why angle trisection is impossible within the rules of Greek geometry. Some other mathematical impossibilities will also be discussed. This talk should be understandable to anyone with a reasonable high school education.

What is K-Theory and What is It Good For?

Thursday, March 9, 2006 - 3:30 pm - Keller 401
Refreshments 3:00 pm - Keller 418

This lecture will give the basic definition of K-theory and will then describe some applications of K-theory (e.g. Riemann-Roch, vector fields on spheres). The history of K-theory will be briefly outlined. This talk should be accessible to graduate students in mathematics and to advanced undergraduate students.

Trees, Buildings, Symmetric Spaces and K-Theory for Group C*-Algebras
Friday, March 10, 2006 - 3:30 pm - Keller 401
Refreshments 3:00 pm - Keller 418

A number of problems and conjectures from various parts of mathematics are contained in the question of determining the K-theory of group C* algebras. This lecture states the conjecture of P. Baum and A. Connes which gives a formula for the K-theory of group C* algebras. Due to the work of many mathematicians, the conjecture has been proved for various classes of (topological) groups. The basic definitions will be given. The talk is intended for a general mathematical audience.


Location:

For the location of the relevant buildings (Keller Hall, Campus Center, Crawford Hall) consult the campus map.


The Speaker:

Paul Frank Baum is Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics at Penn State University. He previously taught at Brown University and Princeton University.

He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College (1958) and his Ph.D. from Princeton University (1963). For the academic year 1958-59 he was an "eleve etranger" at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. His Princeton Ph.D. thesis was written under the direction of John Moore and Norman Steenrod.

Professor Baum's work in mathematics has been inter-disciplinary, ranging from algebraic geometry to K-theory of operator algebras. In 1980 he began the joint effort with Alain Connes which led to the formulation of the conjecture now known as the Baum-Connes conjecture. This conjecture is unusual in that it cuts across several different areas of mathematics and reveals connections between problems that earlier appeared to be totally unrelated.

During 2004 Professor Baum lectured on the Baum-Connes conjecture at universities and research institutes in Europe and the USA. He had visiting appointments at IHES (Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques) and at IAS (Institute for Advanced Study). He gave the 2004 Kemeny Lectures at Dartmouth College. In 2005 he gave invited lecture series in India (Tata Institute for Fundamental Research), in Japan (Keio University), and in Poland (Stefan Banach Institute), as well as the DeLong Lectures at the University of Colorado.


The Sponsors:

The lectures are sponsored by the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Mathematics and the College of Natural Sciences of the University of Hawaii, Manoa.