Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 24, 2003|Volume 32, Number 8

Mathematicians to fete Feit
at conference Oct. 30-Nov. 2

Some 80 researchers in mathematics -- including three recipients of the prestigious Fields Medal -- will participate in a conference being held Oct. 30-Nov. 2 to honor Yale mathematician Walter Feit.

Feit, the Philip Schuyler Beebe Professor of Mathematics, has been at the University since 1964 and will retire at the end of 2003.

The Conference on Group Theory will feature scientific sessions in Sloan Physics Laboratory (SPL), 217 Prospect St., on Thursday, Oct. 30; in Rosenfeld Hall, 109-111 Grove St., on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 31 and Nov. 1; and in Rm. 220 of Dunham Laboratory, 10 Hillhouse Ave., on Sunday, Nov. 2. Individual sessions are free and open to the public, but there is a $30 fee to attend the whole conference. The registration desk will be open 9-10 a.m. Oct. 30 in SPL.

Among the lecturers are Field Medalists Jean-Pierre Serre of the College de France, who was recently awarded the Abel Prize by the Norwegian government; John Thompson '55 of Cambridge University; and Efrim Zelmanov, formerly of Yale and now at the University of California, San Diego. The Fields Medal is awarded every four years at the International Congress of Mathema-ticians.

Feit has enriched the discipline of group theory with extensive research, writing and teaching. His joint work with John Thompson, on the solvability of groups of odd order, was considered a major advance toward the classification of simple finite groups. The authors were awarded the 1964 Cole Prize of the American Mathematical Society for this work.

Feit is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. At Yale, he has held all the administrative positions within the Department of Mathematics, has served on the Physical Sciences Advisory Committee and has been chiefly responsible for the undergraduate program in algebra.

For further information about the conference, call (203) 436-4652 or send e-mail to karenf@math.yale.edu.

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