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Hunting down groups in the Tangente collection | Tangente
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In the school curriculum
The era of so-called "modern mathematics" brings back many memories, some pleasant, others decidedly less so. But does that mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater?
Groups: a matter of relationships
The concept of a group emerged in the early 19th century to solve polynomial equations and very quickly spread to other fields, including those outside mathematics: it allows us to focus on relationships between objects rather than on the objects themselves.
Group theory's founders: Galois, Cayley, Jordan | Tangente
The concept of a group did not simply appear overnight. Like many mathematical concepts, the idea took time—a great deal of time—to emerge, however "elementary" it may be, along with definitions… that now seem so obvious to us.
The language of groups
The word "group" was introduced by Évariste Galois himself in the 19th century, without a precise definition. The emergence of this concept called for a new vocabulary.
Editorial
"The concept of a group already exists in our minds, at least potentially. It forces itself upon us, not as a form of our sensibility, but as a form of our understanding." Henri Poincaré, La science et l'hypothèse, 1902.