{"589111":{"#nid":"589111","#data":{"type":"news","title":"1996 Stelson Lecture - Gilles Pisier","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.math.tamu.edu\/%7Episier\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EGilles Pisier\u003C\/a\u003E got his Ph.D. under the direction of Laurent Schwartz in 1977. He currently holds the Owen chair of mathematics at Texas A\u0026amp;M and he is also a professor at Paris VI. Pisier\u0026#39;s interests include functional analysis, probability, harmonic analysis, operator theory, and C*-algebras. Pisier was a primary speaker in the Functional Analysis Section of the 1983 ICM Congress in Warsaw, Poland. Pisier\u0026#39;s achievements have been recognized by many prizes and distinctions, such as the Grands Prix de l\u0026#39;Academie des Sciences de Paris 1992, and Salem Prize 1979. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Ch3\u003ESimilarity problems for representations of groups or operator algebras\u003C\/h3\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EWe will survey some recent progress on certain similarity problems which can be posed in various contexts. In the group case the problem has a long history going back to Sz. Nagy and Dixmier and may be formulated as: on which groups G is every uniformly bounded representation p : G \u0026AElig; B(H) \u0026quot;unitarizable\u0026quot; (i.e. similar to a unitary one)? For the disc algebra, the analogous problem was posed by Halmos in 1970 and was recently solved: there is a polynomially bounded operator which is not similar to a contraction. For C*-algebras, the corresponding problem (posed in 1955 by Kadison) is still open: is every bounded homomorphism on a C*-algebra similar to a contractive one? The more recent concept of a \u0026quot;completely bounded map\u0026quot; allows us to treat these problems in a common framework. In each case (either groups, uniform algebras, or C*-algebras), the appropriate notion of \u0026quot;amenability\u0026quot; plays an important role in the recent developments that will be presented.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Stelson Lecture by gues speaker Gilles Pisier"}],"uid":"34465","created_gmt":"2017-03-22 15:55:31","changed_gmt":"2017-04-07 13:32:45","author":"math-csg1b","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"1996-01-01T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"1996-01-01T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"589956":{"id":"589956","type":"image","title":"Gilles Pisier","body":null,"created":"1491571943","gmt_created":"2017-04-07 13:32:23","changed":"1491571943","gmt_changed":"2017-04-07 13:32:23","alt":"","file":{"fid":"224750","name":"pisier-stelson.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/pisier-stelson.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/pisier-stelson.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":12934,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/pisier-stelson.jpg?itok=L9za4GDS"}}},"media_ids":["589956"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.math.gatech.edu\/news-events\/stelson","title":" \u2190 View Previous Stelson Lectures"}],"groups":[{"id":"1279","name":"School of Mathematics"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"173647","name":"_for_math_site_"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}