Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 14:13:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: James Stasheff <jds@math.upenn.edu>
Subject: Re: answer to Stasheff

I may not have stated the question clearly enough:

The idea is the following:
C^*(X;Q) the singular cochain algebra is associative but
not commutative
over Q we can symmetrize it: u*v = 1/2 (u\cup v \pm v\cup u)
etc
claim is * is the beginning of an A_\infty algebra
query: such that the m_i are sutiably symmetric?

anyone know where the details are written down?

I've checked with mandell and indeed his work is quite transverse
to this - he has E_\infty structures - neither strictly assoc
nor strictly comm
thogh he does get some lovely results over the algebraic closure
of the field with p elements

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         Jim Stasheff           jds@math.upenn.edu

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