Functional analysis
Hilbert spaces can be completely classified: there is a unique Hilbert space up to isomorphism for every cardinality of the orthonormal basis. Finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces are fully understood in linear algebra, and infinite-dimensional separable Hilbert spaces are isomorphic to formula_1. Separability being important for applications, functional analysis of Hilbert spaces consequently mostly deals with this space. One of the open problems in functional analysis is to prove that every bounded linear operator on a Hilbert space has a proper invariant subspace. Many special cases of this invariant subspace problem have already been proven.
Calkin algebra
In functional analysis, the Calkin algebra, named after John Wilson Calkin, is the quotient of "B"("H"), the ring of bounded linear operators on a separable infinite-dimensional Hilbert space "H", by the ideal "K"("H") of compact operators. Here the addition in "B"("H") is addition of operators and the multiplication in "B"("H") is composition of operators; it is easy to verify that these operations make "B"("H") into a ring. When scalar multiplication is also included, "B"("H") becomes in fact an algebra over the same field over which "H" is a Hilbert space.