Special Lectures Professor Pierre Cartier of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, Paris, will visit the Institute of Mathematics, VAST, from October 27 thru November 15. Beside the lectures on Lie algebras and Lie groups given at the International master class of the Institute he plans to give three lectures on INTRODUCTION TO OPERADS AND CORRESPONDING POLYHEDRA Abstract: Operads have been invented in the   1960's  by  Stasheff  for the characterization of  loop spaces in homotopy theory. After a long period of oblivion, the operads have been resurrected about  10 years ago as a new tool of so-called  Universal Algebra. A given operad encodes all possible natural operations in a given class of algebras, for instance associative algebras, or Lie algebras. This method enables also to organize in a coherent way the transformations between different classes of algebras. The flavor is definitely functorial, but the idea of Stasheff of introducing suitable polyhedra to encode the situation has proved extremely intuitive and efficient. Applications will be given to problems in algebra, combinatorics, geometry and even computer sciences.   Schedule Lecture Time Venue Lecture 1 Friday October 31, 13:30 -15:00 Lecture Hall 6, Building A14 Lecture 2 Tuesday, November 4, 9:00 - 10:30 Lecture Hall 6, Building A14 Lecture 3 Tuesday, November 11, 9:00 - 10:30 Lecture Hall 6, Building A14