The index of operators in Banach spaces (Q1108560)

The notion of index of an operator is a central one in the theory which leads to the famous Atiyah-Singer theorem, one of the highlights of modern Global Analysis. In this paper I want to give an historical sketch of the development of that notion during the first half of the 20th century, providing the tools of ``Functional Analysis'' used in the Atiyah-Singer proof.