We survey the genesis and development of higher algebraic K-theory by Daniel Quillen.

Let U be a connected noetherian scheme of finite étale cohomological dimension in which every finite set of points is contained in an affine open subscheme. Suppose that α is a class in H2(Uét,ℂm)tors. For each positive integer m, the K-theory of α-twisted sheaves is used to identify obstructions to α being representable by an Azumaya algebra of rank m2. The étale index of α, denoted eti(α), is the least positive integer such that all the obstructions vanish. Let per(α) be the order of α in H2(Uét,ℂm)tors. Methods from stable homotopy theory give an upper bound on the étale index that depends on the period of α and the étale cohomological dimension of U; this bound is expressed in terms of the exponents of the stable homotopy groups of spheres and the exponents of the stable homotopy groups of B(ℤ/(per(α))). As a corollary, if U is the spectrum of a field of finite cohomological dimension d, then , where [] is the integer part of , whenever per(α) is divided neither by the characteristic of k nor by any primes that are small relative to d.

For any regular noetherian scheme X and every k ≥ 1, we define a chain morphism ψk between two chain complexes whose homology with rational coefficients is isomorphic to the algebraic K-groups of X tensored by ℚ. It is shown that the morphisms ψk induce in homology the Adams operations defined by Gillet and Soulé or the ones defined by Grayson.

We construct an example of a torus T over a field K for which the Galois symbol K(K;T,T)/nK(K;T,T) → H2(K,T[n] ⊗ T[n]) is not injective for some n. Here K(K;T,T) is the Milnor K-group attached to T introduced by Somekawa. We show also that the motive M(T × T) gives a counterexample to another generalization of the Milnor-Bloch-Kato conjecture (proposed by Beilinson).