Gelfand representation theorem ($a\mapsto \hat{a}\in C(\Delta (A))$)

For a commutative complex unital Banach algebra, its Gelfand transform is a continuous unital algebra homomorphism into the continuous functions on its compact character space. The values of the transform of $a$ are exactly ${\sigma }_A(a)$, so $\Vert \hat{a}{\Vert }_{\infty }=r(a)$. Its kernel is the intersection of the kernels of the algebra characters. For a commutative C-star algebra, spectral radius norm equality for normal elements and the Stone-Weierstrass theorem upgrade this to an isometric C-star homomorphism onto $C(\Delta (A))$.