Algebra

In addition to his seminal work in topology, John Milnor is also an accomplished algebraist, producing a spectacular agenda-setting body of work related to algebraic $K$-theory and quadratic forms during the five year period 1965-1970. These papers, together with other (some of them previously unpublished) works in algebra are assembled here in this fifth volume of Milnor's Collected Papers. They constitute not only an important historical archive, but also, thanks to the clarity and elegance of Milnor's mathematical exposition, a valuable resource for work in the fields treated. In addition, Milnor's papers are complemented by detailed surveys on the current state of the field in two areas. One is on the congruence subgroup problem, by Gopal Prasad and Andrei Rapinchuk. The other is on algebraic $K$-theory and quadratic forms, by Alexander Merkurjev.