Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2008
We prove that a complex Banach space X is a Hilbert space if (and only if) the Banach algebra (of all bounded linear operator on X) is unitary and there exists a conjugate-linear algebra involution • on satisfying T• = T−1 for every surjective linear isometry T on X. Appropriate variants for real spaces of the result just quoted are also proven. Moreover, we show that a real Banach space X is a Hilbert space if and only if it is a real JB*-triple and is -unitary, where stands for the dual weak-operator topology.