The classification of spherical buildings
Richard Weiss (Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts)

Jacques Tits gave the classification of spherical buildings of rank at least three in his famous Lecture Notes (1974). The rank two residues of a spherical building of higher rank are Moufang polygons. The classification of Moufang polygons by Tits and the speaker (which appeared in 2001) makes it possible to give a simplified proof of the classification of spherical buildings of rank at least three. We give a brief description of these developments without assuming any familiarity with the theory of buildings.