Timeline for Historical reference request on Nilpotent groups
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 10, 2016 at 3:31 | vote | accept | Drike | ||
| Jun 4, 2016 at 9:46 | answer | added | Friedrich Knop | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 3, 2016 at 19:56 | answer | added | R Maharaj | timeline score: 7 | |
| Jun 3, 2016 at 16:23 | comment | added | Drike | @zeno: as far as I remember, potens is the '-ing' form of the verb potere ; what is power ? the faculty of being able to. 'Potent' litteraly means 'they can' to me. Maybe a true Latinist would have a better/another interpretation... | |
| Jun 3, 2016 at 15:34 | comment | added | zeno | Here's what the Oxford ED says: Late 19th century: from nil + Latin potens, potent- 'power'. | |
| Jun 3, 2016 at 12:17 | comment | added | Danu | This post seems to be better suited to History of Science and Mathematics, since it mainly historical in nature. | |
| Jun 2, 2016 at 18:21 | comment | added | Drike | I hadn't thought of Niels A., I would have tried H. Fitting ! Nil- from Latin 'nihil' which means "nothing", "rien" in French ; and '-potent' from 'potere', meaning 'to be able to', 'pouvoir' in French (which also means 'power'). | |
| Jun 2, 2016 at 18:07 | comment | added | KConrad | It's not named after Niels Nilpotent. The term “nilpotent group” is based on an analogy with ring theory. In a ring, an element with a power equal to 0 is called nilpotent. In a Lie algebra $\mathfrak g$, an element $x$ could be called nilpotent if the linear operator $y \mapsto [x, y]$ on $\mathfrak g$ is nilpotent in the sense of ring theory (a power of the operator is 0). By a theorem of Engel, all elements of a Lie algebra are nilpotent if and only if the Lie group corresponding to the Lie algebra has the property we call being a nilpotent group. | |
| Jun 2, 2016 at 17:51 | comment | added | Derek Holt | Yes soluble is more usual in British and solvable in America although, despite being British, I prefer solvable myself. I associate soluble more with chemistry (salt is soluble in water). | |
| Jun 2, 2016 at 17:49 | comment | added | YCor | possibly. Maybe it also depends on the subcommunauties of people working with groups. I especially saw "soluble" among the British community of combinatorial group theory. | |
| Jun 2, 2016 at 17:43 | history | edited | Drike | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 2, 2016 at 17:41 | comment | added | Drike | Isn't there one which is more British English and the other American English ? | |
| Jun 2, 2016 at 17:38 | comment | added | YCor | btw the original French word for solvable was résoluble and has two English translations in use: the most common solvable and also soluble | |
| Jun 2, 2016 at 16:49 | history | asked | Drike | CC BY-SA 3.0 |