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Martin Sleziak
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Because I have heard the phrase "totally ordered abelian group", I imagine there should be non-abelian ones. By this I mean a group with a total orderingtotal ordering (not to be confused with a well-ordering) which is "bi-translation invariant": a < b should imply cad < cbd.

Does anyone know any examples?

Totally ordered abelian groups are easy to come up with: any direct product of subgroups of the reals, with the lexicographic ordering, will do. Knowing some non-abelian ones would help reveal what aspects of totally ordered abelian groups really depend on them being abelian...

Edit: Via Andy Putman's answer below, I found this great summary of results about ordered and bi-ordered groups (i.e. groups with bi-translation invariant orderings) on Dale Rolfsen's site:

Lecture notes on Ordered Groups and Topology

He shows numerous examples of non-abelian bi-orderable groups, including a bi-ordering (bi-translation invariant ordering) on the free group with two generators. As well, he mentions, due to Rhemtulla, that a left-orderable group is abelian iff every left-ordering is a bi-ordering, which I think really highlights the relationship between ordering and abelianity.

Because I have heard the phrase "totally ordered abelian group", I imagine there should be non-abelian ones. By this I mean a group with a total ordering (not to be confused with a well-ordering) which is "bi-translation invariant": a < b should imply cad < cbd.

Does anyone know any examples?

Totally ordered abelian groups are easy to come up with: any direct product of subgroups of the reals, with the lexicographic ordering, will do. Knowing some non-abelian ones would help reveal what aspects of totally ordered abelian groups really depend on them being abelian...

Edit: Via Andy Putman's answer below, I found this great summary of results about ordered and bi-ordered groups (i.e. groups with bi-translation invariant orderings) on Dale Rolfsen's site:

Lecture notes on Ordered Groups and Topology

He shows numerous examples of non-abelian bi-orderable groups, including a bi-ordering (bi-translation invariant ordering) on the free group with two generators. As well, he mentions, due to Rhemtulla, that a left-orderable group is abelian iff every left-ordering is a bi-ordering, which I think really highlights the relationship between ordering and abelianity.

Because I have heard the phrase "totally ordered abelian group", I imagine there should be non-abelian ones. By this I mean a group with a total ordering (not to be confused with a well-ordering) which is "bi-translation invariant": a < b should imply cad < cbd.

Does anyone know any examples?

Totally ordered abelian groups are easy to come up with: any direct product of subgroups of the reals, with the lexicographic ordering, will do. Knowing some non-abelian ones would help reveal what aspects of totally ordered abelian groups really depend on them being abelian...

Edit: Via Andy Putman's answer below, I found this great summary of results about ordered and bi-ordered groups (i.e. groups with bi-translation invariant orderings) on Dale Rolfsen's site:

Lecture notes on Ordered Groups and Topology

He shows numerous examples of non-abelian bi-orderable groups, including a bi-ordering (bi-translation invariant ordering) on the free group with two generators. As well, he mentions, due to Rhemtulla, that a left-orderable group is abelian iff every left-ordering is a bi-ordering, which I think really highlights the relationship between ordering and abelianity.

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YCor
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Andrew Critch
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Because I have heard the phrase "totally ordered abelian group", I imagine there should be non-abelian ones. By this I mean a group with a total ordering (not to be confused with a well-ordering) which is "bi-translation invariant": a < b should imply cad < cbd.

Does anyone know any examples?

Totally ordered abelian groups are easy to come up with: any direct product of subgroups of the reals, with the lexicographic ordering, will do. Knowing some non-abelian ones would help reveal what aspects of totally ordered abelian groups really depend on them being abelian...

Edit: Via Andy Putman's answer below, I found this great summary of results about ordered and bi-ordered groups (i.e. groups with bi-translation invariant orderings) on Dale Rolfsen's site:

Lecture notes on Ordered Groups and Topology

He shows numerous examples of non-abelian bi-orderable groups, including a bi-ordering (bi-translation invariant ordering) on the free group with two generators. As well, he mentions, due to Rhemtulla, that a left-orderable group is abelian iff every left-ordering is a bi-ordering, which I think really highlights the relationship between ordering and abelianity.

Because I have heard the phrase "totally ordered abelian group", I imagine there should be non-abelian ones. By this I mean a group with a total ordering (not to be confused with a well-ordering) which is "bi-translation invariant": a < b should imply cad < cbd.

Does anyone know any examples?

Totally ordered abelian groups are easy to come up with: any direct product of subgroups of the reals, with the lexicographic ordering, will do. Knowing some non-abelian ones would help reveal what aspects of totally ordered abelian groups really depend on them being abelian...

Because I have heard the phrase "totally ordered abelian group", I imagine there should be non-abelian ones. By this I mean a group with a total ordering (not to be confused with a well-ordering) which is "bi-translation invariant": a < b should imply cad < cbd.

Does anyone know any examples?

Totally ordered abelian groups are easy to come up with: any direct product of subgroups of the reals, with the lexicographic ordering, will do. Knowing some non-abelian ones would help reveal what aspects of totally ordered abelian groups really depend on them being abelian...

Edit: Via Andy Putman's answer below, I found this great summary of results about ordered and bi-ordered groups (i.e. groups with bi-translation invariant orderings) on Dale Rolfsen's site:

Lecture notes on Ordered Groups and Topology

He shows numerous examples of non-abelian bi-orderable groups, including a bi-ordering (bi-translation invariant ordering) on the free group with two generators. As well, he mentions, due to Rhemtulla, that a left-orderable group is abelian iff every left-ordering is a bi-ordering, which I think really highlights the relationship between ordering and abelianity.

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Andrew Critch
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