Critical points, the Gauss curvature equation and Blaschke products

In this survey paper, we discuss the problem of characterizing the critical sets of bounded analytic functions in the unit disk of the complex plane. This problem is closely related to the Berger-Nirenberg problem in differential geometry as well as to the problem of describing the zero sets of functions in Bergman spaces. It turns out that for any non-constant bounded analytic function in the unit disk there is always a (essentially) unique "maximal" Blaschke product with the same critical points. These maximal Blaschke products have remarkable properties simliar to those of Bergman space inner functions and they provide a natural generalization of the class of finite Blaschke products.