Course Description
This course is the first half of the year-long introductory graduate sequence 18.745/18.755 on Lie groups and Lie algebras. Topics include foundations of the theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras; theorems of Engel and Lie; the universal enveloping algebra, the Poincare-Birkhoff-Witt theorem; free Lie algebras; the …
This course is the first half of the year-long introductory graduate sequence 18.745/18.755 on Lie groups and Lie algebras. Topics include foundations of the theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras; theorems of Engel and Lie; the universal enveloping algebra, the Poincare-Birkhoff-Witt theorem; free Lie algebras; the Campbell-Hausdorff formula; classification and structure of finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebras; their finite dimensional representations; and the Weyl character formula.
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
The E8 root system consists of 240 vectors in an 8-dimensional space. Those vectors are the vertices (corners) of an 8-dimensional object called the Gosset polytope 421. (Image courtesy of John Stembridge, University of Michigan. Used with permission.)