Abstract Prof. Loren Spice, University of Michigan, Jan. 22, 2009, 3 pm, place TBA

Harmonic analysis was born in an attempt to answer physical questions, but it turns out to admit generalisations in surprising and abstract directions, unifying many different areas of mathematics. In this talk, we will discuss one such generalisation, to the setting of matrix groups over the p-adic numbers. In particular, we will describe recent joint work with Jeff Adler, towards an explicit Plancherel formula via character computations.