Szego Seminar: Amenability of groups and operator algebras

Abstract: The mysterious Banach-Tarski paradox states that the three-dimensional (solid) ball has a decomposition into finite pieces, which can be assembled in a different way into two copies of the original ball. Such paradoxical decomposition is coming from the property of SO(3) which is called “non-amenability”.
 
Amenability (or non-amenability) is a very important property in the group theory and deeply relates to operator algebras, but unfortunately it is not familiar to a lot of people. In this talk, I will introduce this concept and how it works in the operator algebra theory.

Host: Pooja Joshi