Groups and Geometries Siena Conference, September 1996

The Conference on Groups and Geometries held in Siena in 1996, addressed a broad range of topics in group theory and geometry, with emphasis on recent results and open problems. Special attention was drawn to the interplay between group-theoretic methods and geometric and combinatorial ones.
Expanded versions of many of the talks appear in these proceedings. Algebraists and geometers will encounter in this conference record a stimulating collection of ideas stemming from work in such areas as 1) the classification of finite simple groups; 2) the structure and properties of groups of Lie type over finite and algebraically closed fields of finite characteristic; 3) buildings, and the geometry of projective and polar spaces; and 4) geometries of sporadic simple groups.