Concept
Geometric group theory
Related concepts (40)
Burnside problem
The Burnside problem asks whether a finitely generated group in which every element has finite order must necessarily be a finite group. It was posed by William Burnside in 1902, making it one of the oldest questions in group theory and was influential in the development of combinatorial group theory. It is known to have a negative answer in general, as Evgeny Golod and Igor Shafarevich provided a counter-example in 1964.
Building (mathematics)
In mathematics, a building (also Tits building, named after Jacques Tits) is a combinatorial and geometric structure which simultaneously generalizes certain aspects of flag manifolds, finite projective planes, and Riemannian symmetric spaces. Buildings were initially introduced by Jacques Tits as a means to understand the structure of exceptional groups of Lie type. The more specialized theory of Bruhat–Tits buildings (named also after François Bruhat) plays a role in the study of p-adic Lie groups analogous to that of the theory of symmetric spaces in the theory of Lie groups.
Icosian calculus
The icosian calculus is a non-commutative algebraic structure discovered by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton in 1856. In modern terms, he gave a group presentation of the icosahedral rotation group by generators and relations. Hamilton's discovery derived from his attempts to find an algebra of "triplets" or 3-tuples that he believed would reflect the three Cartesian axes. The symbols of the icosian calculus can be equated to moves between vertices on a dodecahedron.
Hyperbolic group
In group theory, more precisely in geometric group theory, a hyperbolic group, also known as a word hyperbolic group or Gromov hyperbolic group, is a finitely generated group equipped with a word metric satisfying certain properties abstracted from classical hyperbolic geometry. The notion of a hyperbolic group was introduced and developed by . The inspiration came from various existing mathematical theories: hyperbolic geometry but also low-dimensional topology (in particular the results of Max Dehn concerning the fundamental group of a hyperbolic Riemann surface, and more complex phenomena in three-dimensional topology), and combinatorial group theory.
Growth rate (group theory)
In the mathematical subject of geometric group theory, the growth rate of a group with respect to a symmetric generating set describes how fast a group grows. Every element in the group can be written as a product of generators, and the growth rate counts the number of elements that can be written as a product of length n. Suppose G is a finitely generated group; and T is a finite symmetric set of generators (symmetric means that if then ).
Max Dehn
Max Wilhelm Dehn (November 13, 1878 – June 27, 1952) was a German mathematician most famous for his work in geometry, topology and geometric group theory. Dehn's early life and career took place in Germany. However, he was forced to retire in 1935 and eventually fled Germany in 1939 and emigrated to the United States. Dehn was a student of David Hilbert, and in his habilitation in 1900 Dehn resolved Hilbert's third problem, making him the first to resolve one of Hilbert's well-known 23 problems.
Gromov's theorem on groups of polynomial growth
In geometric group theory, Gromov's theorem on groups of polynomial growth, first proved by Mikhail Gromov, characterizes finitely generated groups of polynomial growth, as those groups which have nilpotent subgroups of finite index. The growth rate of a group is a well-defined notion from asymptotic analysis. To say that a finitely generated group has polynomial growth means the number of elements of length (relative to a symmetric generating set) at most n is bounded above by a polynomial function p(n).
Amenable group
In mathematics, an amenable group is a locally compact topological group G carrying a kind of averaging operation on bounded functions that is invariant under translation by group elements. The original definition, in terms of a finitely additive measure (or mean) on subsets of G, was introduced by John von Neumann in 1929 under the German name "messbar" ("measurable" in English) in response to the Banach–Tarski paradox. In 1949 Mahlon M. Day introduced the English translation "amenable", apparently as a pun on "mean".
Walther von Dyck
Walther Franz Anton von Dyck (6 December 1856 – 5 November 1934), born Dyck (diːk) and later ennobled, was a German mathematician. He is credited with being the first to define a mathematical group, in the modern sense in . He laid the foundations of combinatorial group theory, being the first to systematically study a group by generators and relations. Von Dyck was a student of Felix Klein, and served as chairman of the commission publishing Klein's encyclopedia. Von Dyck was also the editor of Kepler's works.
Cayley graph
In mathematics, a Cayley graph, also known as a Cayley color graph, Cayley diagram, group diagram, or color group, is a graph that encodes the abstract structure of a group. Its definition is suggested by Cayley's theorem (named after Arthur Cayley), and uses a specified set of generators for the group. It is a central tool in combinatorial and geometric group theory. The structure and symmetry of Cayley graphs makes them particularly good candidates for constructing families of expander graphs.