Moonshine, the Monster, and Related Topics

"e;One of the great legacies of the classification of the finite simple groups is the existence of the Monster $\ldots$ Work of Borcherds and Frenkel-Lepowsky-Meurman led to the notion of a vertex (operator) algebra, which was seen to be the same as the chiral algebras used by physicists in conformal field theory$\ldots$ The connections with physics have proven to be invaluable, and it seems likely that another branch of mathematics whose origins are eerily similar to those of moonshine-that is, elliptic cohomology-will turn out to be very relevant too. - from the Preface This volume contains the proceedings of a Joint Summer Research Conference held at Mount Holyoke College in June 1994. As perhaps the first conference proceedings devoted exclusively to the subject known as "e;Moonshine"e;, this work contains something for many mathematicians and physicists. Features: Results concerning the monster simple group and other simple groups. Connections with elliptic cohomology. Connections with 2-dimensional conformal field theory. The role of operads. Connections with modular functions. Much of Moonshine, the Monster, and Related Topics features new results not available anywhere else.