Factoring weakly compact operators

AbstractThe main result is that every weakly compact operator between Banach spaces factors through a reflexive Banach space. Applications of the result and technique of proof include new results (e.g., separable conjugate spaces embed isomorphically in spaces with boundedly complete bases; convex weakly compact sets are affinely homeomorphic to sets in a reflexive space) and simple proofs of known results (e.g., there is a reflexive space failing the Banach-Saks property; if X is separable, then X = Z∗∗Z for some Z; there is a separable space which does not contain l1 whose dual is nonseparable)