Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
A collection of subspaces of a Hilbert space is called a nest if it is totally ordered by inclusion. The set of all bounded linear operators leaving invariant each member of a given nest forms a weakly-closed algebra, called a nest algebra. Nest algebras were introduced by J. R. Ringrose in [9]. The present paper is concerned with generating nest algebras as weakly-closed algebras, and in particular with the following question which was first raised by H. Radjavi and P. Rosenthal in [8], viz: Is every nest algebra on a separable Hilbert space generated, as a weakly-closed algebra, by two operators? That the answer to this question is affirmative is proved by first reducing the problem using the main result of [8] and then by using a characterization of nests due to J. A. Erdos [2].