The Kadison-Singer Problem

September 25 to September 29, 2006

at the

American Institute of Mathematics, Palo Alto, California

organized by

Pete Casazza, Richard Kadison, and David Larson

This workshop, sponsored by AIM and the NSF, will be devoted to the Kadison-Singer Problem and its relationship to various areas of research in mathematics and engineering.

The 1959 Kadison-Singer Problem in C*-algebras has defied the best efforts of some of the most talented mathematicians of our time. Recently it was shown that this problem is equivalent to fundamental unsolved problems in a dozen areas of research in Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Engineering, including: operator theory, Banach space theory, harmonic analysis, and signal processing.

The specific purpose of this workshop is to bring together some of the top minds in the various areas of research impacted by the Kadison-Singer Problem to see if we can resolve the problem. For more realistic goals, we expect:

  1. The participants to release partial results they have on the problem;
  2. To formulate related problems that might be more tractable than the full-scope problem, and could potentially lead to the eventual solution of the problem;
  3. To map out possible "paths" that could lead to the solution - especially interactive paths between two or more research areas; and
  4. To establish long term relationships between people from the diverse areas of research impacted by Kadison-Singer which will lead to interactive research in the future.
We anticipate having only one talk each day presenting an introduction to one area impacted by the Kadison-Singer Problem. These talks will form an introduction to the workshop's activities for that day.

The workshop will differ from typical conferences in some regards. Participants will be invited to suggest open problems and questions before the workshop begins, and these will be posted on the workshop website. These include specific problems on which there is hope of making some progress during the workshop, as well as more ambitious problems which may influence the future activity of the field. Lectures at the workshop will be focused on familiarizing the participants with the background material leading up to specific problems, and the schedule will include discussion and parallel working sessions.

The deadline to apply for support to participate in this workshop has passed.

For more information email workshops@aimath.org

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