Classifying the Unclassifiables

MaRDI QIDQ3597313zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Edward G. Effros

Publication date 9 February 2009

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/0708.0249

zbMATH Keywords

classificationorbit spacequantizationBorel embeddingssmooth Borel structure

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Unitary representations of locally compact groups (22D10) Descriptive set theory (03E15) Descriptive set theory (topological aspects of Borel, analytic, projective, etc. sets) (54H05)

Abstract: In 1955 George Mackey suggested that there is a fundamental dichotomy in the unitary representation theory of locally compact second countable groups. He felt that there cannnot be a reasonable classification theory for the unitary representations of a group G for which the dual is a non-smooth Borel space. Mackey's precise conjecture regarding when this is the case was subsequently verified by Glimm. This approach to "classifiability" can be applied in many other branches of mathematics. Included in this article is a sketch of some of the exciting new developments that have been made in this direction. Evidence is given that there should be extensions of Mackey's ideas to such "finitistic" problems as the classification of the finite p-groups. In a different direction, Mackey's thoughts about quantization are also briefly discussed.

Recommendations

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 705095
• Borel superrigidity and the classification problem for the torsion-free abelian groups of finite rank
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 4077176
• Classifying the finite simple groups
• The classification problem for simple unital finite rank dimension groups

This page was built for publication: Classifying the Unclassifiables

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q3597313)