The Ulam lectures this semester will be around Chevalley groups and generalizations. Chevalley groups were important in leading to the theory of algebraic groups and in the classification of finite groups. They are of interest to representation theorists, algebraic geometers, number theorists and other mathematicians.
Rather than give all of the lectures myself, I would like to enlist the help of the graduate student participants. In addition to the actual lectures (on Thursdays), I will also host a weekly (schedule TBD) informal working/problem session focused on finer details and working with explicit examples.
The intended audience/participants are second year graduate students, but all who are interested are welcome. I especially welcome students who may already have or want to learn some background in Lie algebras as this will be the topic for next week. This week, Thursday, Feb 3, I will give an introductory lecture. If you are unable to attend in person, please email michael.woodbury@colorado.edu so that I can share a Zoom link with you.
To all faculty: If you have a specific application or generalization of Chevalley groups (such as a paper(s) or book chapter(s)) that you think your current or future grad students would benefit to learn, please share your ideas with me. I have many ideas myself, but I imagine the students that already do or may end up working with you would appreciate learning something particularly relevant to your field.