The meaning of 196884 = 196883 + 1 (part I)

John Mckay, Concordia University


September 20th, 2004.


Abstract: I shall discuss my work over the past 25 years investigating 
the Monster - a finite group of order about 10^54 which is larger
than the number of electrons in the earth. There is much still to be
discovered and many outstanding computatonal problems. The history
starts with the late neolithic period. The mathematics involves
algebra and the classification of uniformizing functions on simple
Riemann surfaces and much else.