The Genesis of the Abstract Group Concept: A Contribution to the History of the Origin of Abstract Group Theory

Wussing, Hans

ISBN 10: 0262231093 / ISBN 13: 9780262231091

Published by Mit Pr, Cumberland, Rhode Island, U.S.A., 1984

About this Item

Translated by Abe Shenitzer.

Seller Inventory # 014083

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Genesis of the Abstract Group Concept: A Contribution to the History of the Origin of Abstract Group Theory
• Publisher: Mit Pr, Cumberland, Rhode Island, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 1984
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262231093
• ISBN 13: 9780262231091
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • Mathematics

About this title

Synopsis

In this book, Hans Wussing sets out to trace the process of abstraction that led finally to the axiomatic formulation of the abstract notion of group. His main thesis is that the roots of the abstract notion of group do not lie, as frequently assumed, only in the theory of algebraic equations; they are also to be found in the geometry and the theory of numbers of the end of the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries.

The book takes us from Lagrange via Cauchy, Abel, and Galois to Serret and Camille Jordan. It then turns to Cayley, to Felix Klein's Erlangen Program, and to Sophus Lie, and ends with a sketch of the state of group theory about 1920, when the axiom systems of Webber had been formalized and investigated in their own right.

Hans Wussing is director of the Karl Sudhoff Institute for the History of Medicine and Science at Karl Marx University in Leipzig, East Germany.

About the Author

Hans Wussing is director of the Karl Sudhoff Institute for the History of Medicine and Science at Karl Marx University in Leipzig, Germany.