EMS 1976 Colloquium

The Edinburgh Mathematical Society held the St Andrews Colloquium in St Andrews from 14 to 24 July 1976.

A picture of the 1976 Colloquium is available at THIS LINK.

The Lecturers of the St Andrews Mathematical Colloquium, 1976.

The following gave a series of lectures:

(a) Professor Heini Halberstam (Nottingham) - "Number Theory."

(b) Professor E Christopher Zeeman (Warwick) - "Catastrophe Theory."

(c) Professor Irving Kaplansky (Chicago) - "Graded Lie Algebras and other topics."

The following arranged seminars:

(d) Professor John Duncan (Stirling) - Analysis seminars.

(e) Professor Peter M Neumann (Oxford) - Algebra seminars.
Mike Beetham's report on the 1976 St Andrews Colloquium.

From the minutes of the First Ordinary meeting of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society for session 1976-77:

Dr M J Beetham reported on the Eleventh St Andrews Mathematical Colloquium held from 14th to 24th July 1976. The three main speakers were Professor H Halberstam (on Number Theory), Professor E C Zeeman (on Catastrophe Theory) and Professor I Kaplansky (on Graded Lie Algebras and other topics). Seminars on Analysis and Algebra were organised by Professor J Duncan and Dr P M Neumann respectively and there was a single seminar in Combinatorics. A number of individual lectures were also given. In addition to the mathematical activities, the usual social events took place. About 170 members took part in the Colloquium.
Memories of the 1976 St Andrews Colloquium.

3.1. Edmund Robertson writes:
I remember two things about Irving Kaplansky's time at the 1976 St Andrews Colloquium. Firstly I remember his inspiring series of lectures on Lie Algebras in which he also spoke about locally compact groups and the solution to Hilbert's fifth problem. Secondly I remember an equally amazing performance that Irving gave at the piano where for about an hour he sat and played Gilbert and Sullivan, totally from memory.
3.2. In the paper "On isometries of Jordan algebras" (1978), J D Maitland Wright and M A Youngson:
... give a positive answer to a conjecture made by Professor Kaplansky in his final lecture to the St Andrews Colloquium of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society in July, 1976.
3.3. J D Maitland Wright, in his paper Jordan C*-algebras (1977), begins the Introduction as follows:
In his final lecture to the 1976 St Andrews Colloquium of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, Professor Kaplansky introduced the concept of a Jordan C*-algebra [and] pointed out its potential importance ...