SAS

Abstract

Operator algebra theory, in its classical form, is developed in about as nonconstructive a manner as one could imagine: typical existence proofs use contradiction arguments and applications of Zorn's lemma. Finding a viable constructive development of, or perhaps alternative to, operator algebra theory would seem to be a major test of Bishop-style constructive mathematics (or, indeed, of any other approach to extracting the computational content of a classical theory). In my talk I shall present some of the background, some recent progress, and some of the major problems that lie at the very start of such a development.