This second of two volumes gives a modern exposition of the theory of Banach algebras.

During the academic year 1987-1988 the University of Wisconsin in Madison hosted a Special Year of Lie Algebras. A Workshop on Lie Algebras, of which these are the proceedings, inaugurated the special year. The principal focus of the year and of the workshop was the long-standing problem of classifying the simple finite-dimensional Lie algebras over algebraically closed field of prime characteristic. However, other lectures at the workshop dealt with the related areas of algebraic groups, representation theory, and Kac-Moody Lie algebras. Fourteen papers were presented and nine of these (eight research articles and one expository article) make up this volume.

Polished lecture notes provide a clean and usefully detailed account of the standard elements of the theory of Lie groups and algebras. Following nineteen pages of preparatory material, Part I (seven brief chapters) treats "Lie groups and their Lie algebras"; Part II (seven chapters) treats "complex semi-simple Lie algebras"; Part III (two chapters) treats "real semi-simple Lie algebras". The page design is intimidatingly dense, the exposition very much in the familiar "definition/lemma/proof/theorem/proof/remark" mode, and there are no exercises or bibliography. (NW) Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The purpose of this book is to serve as a tool for researchers and practitioners who apply Lie algebras and Lie groups to solve problems arising in science and engineering. The authors address the problem of expressing a Lie algebra obtained in some arbitrary basis in a more suitable basis in which all essential features of the Lie algebra are directly visible. This includes algorithms accomplishing decomposition into a direct sum, identification of the radical and the Levi decomposition, and the computation of the nilradical and of the Casimir invariants. Examples are given for each algorithm. For low-dimensional Lie algebras this makes it possible to identify the given Lie algebra completely. The authors provide a representative list of all Lie algebras of dimension less or equal to 6 together with their important properties, including their Casimir invariants. The list is ordered in a way to make identification easy, using only basis independent properties of the Lie algebras. They also describe certain classes of nilpotent and solvable Lie algebras of arbitrary finite dimensions for which complete or partial classification exists and discuss in detail their construction and properties. The book is based on material that was previously dispersed in journal articles, many of them written by one or both of the authors together with their collaborators. The reader of this book should be familiar with Lie algebra theory at an introductory level.

From the reviews: "..., the book must be of great help for a researcher who already has some idea of Lie theory, wants to employ it in his everyday research and/or teaching, and needs a source for customary reference on the subject. From my viewpoint, the volume is perfectly fit to serve as such a source, ... On the whole, it is quite a pleasure, after making yourself comfortable in that favourite office armchair of yours, just to keep the volume gently in your hands and browse it slowly and thoughtfully; and after all, what more on Earth can one expect of any book?" --The New Zealand Mathematical Society Newsletter

The great Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie developed the general theory of transformations in the 1870s, and the first part of the book properly focuses on his work. In the second part the central figure is Wilhelm Killing, who developed structure and classification of semisimple Lie algebras. The third part focuses on the developments of the representation of Lie algebras, in particular the work of Elie Cartan. The book concludes with the work of Hermann Weyl and his contemporaries on the structure and representation of Lie groups which serves to bring together much of the earlier work into a coherent theory while at the same time opening up significant avenues for further work.

Algebraic groups and Lie groups are important in most major areas of mathematics, occuring in diverse roles such as the symmetries of differential equations and as central figures in the Langlands program for number theory. In this book, Professor Borel looks at the development of the theory of Lie groups and algebraic groups, highlighting the evolution from the almost purely local theory at the start to the global theory that we know today. As the starting point of this passagefrom local to global, the author takes Lie's theory of local analytic transformation groups and Lie algebras. He then follows the globalization of the process in its two most important frameworks: (transcendental) differential geometry and algebraic geometry. Chapters II to IV are devoted to the former,Chapters V to VIII, to the latter.The essays in the first part of the book survey various proofs of the full reducibility of linear representations of $SL 2M$, the contributions H. Weyl to representation and invariant theory for Lie groups, and conclude with a chapter on E. Cartan's theory of symmetric spaces and Lie groups in the large.The second part of the book starts with Chapter V describing the development of the theory of linear algebraic groups in the 19th century. Many of the main contributions here are due to E. Study, E. Cartan, and above all, to L. Maurer. After being abandoned for nearly 50 years, the theory was revived by Chevalley and Kolchin and then further developed by many others. This is the focus of Chapter VI. The book concludes with two chapters on various aspects of the works of Chevalley on Lie groupsand algebraic groups and Kolchin on algebraic groups and the Galois theory of differential fields.The author brings a unique perspective to this study. As an important developer of some of the modern elements of both the differential geometric and the algebraic geometric sides of the theory, he has a particularly deep appreciation of the underlying mathematics. His lifelong involvement and his historical research in the subject give him a special appreciation of the story of its development.