Simon Norton lecture

I have been honoured by an invitation to give the inaugural Simon Norton lecture at the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences on 12 February. The webpage is here.

Of course there are other people who knew Simon better than I did. Nevertheless, I think I have something to say. It was a paper of mine, with Jean-Marie Goethals and Jaap Seidel, which (as far as I know) introduced the term Norton algebra for a commutative but non-associative algebra of the general type which Bob Griess later used to construct the Monster. Our reference for this is to a personal communication from J. H. Conway. Nearly half a century later, I cannot remember exactly what Conway said to me.

Anyway, I will be very glad to see you there if you can come.