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THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XII SLICE VI
Groups, Theory of to Gwyniad
Articles in This Slice
GROUPS, THEORY OF GUIDICCIONI, GIOVANNI GROUSE GUIDO OF AREZZO GROVE, SIR GEORGE GUIDO OF SIENA GROVE, SIR WILLIAM ROBERT GUIDO RENI GROVE GUIENNE GROZNYI GUIGNES, JOSEPH DE GRUB GUILBERT, YVETTE GRUBER, JOHANN GOTTFRIED GUILDFORD GRUMBACH, WILHELM VON GUILDHALL GRUMENTUM GUILFORD, BARONS AND EARLS OF GRÜN GUILFORD GRÜNBERG GUILLAUME, JEAN BAPTISTE CLAUDE EUGÈNE GRUNDTVIG, NIKOLAI FREDERIK SEVERIN GUILLAUME DE LORRIS GRUNDY, SYDNEY GUILLAUME DE PALERME GRUNDY, MRS GUILLAUME D’ORANGE GRUNER, GOTTLIEB SIGMUND GUILLEMOT GRÜNEWALD, MATHIAS GUILLOCHE GRUTER, JAN GUILLON, MARIE NICOLAS SYLVESTREGROUPS,1 THEORY OF. The conception of an operation to be carried out on some object or set of objects underlies all mathematical science. Thus in elementary arithmetic there are the fundamental operations of the addition and the multiplication of integers; in algebra a linear transformation is an operation which may be carried out on any set of variables; while in geometry a translation, a rotation, or a projective transformation are operations which may be carried out on any figure.
In speaking of an operation, an object or a set of objects to which it may be applied is postulated; and the operation may, and generally will, have no meaning except in regard to such a set of objects. If two operations, which can be performed on the same set of objects, are such that, when carried out in succession on any possible object, the result, whichever operation is performed first, is to produce no change in the object, then each of the operations is spoken of as a definite operation, and each of them is called the inverse of the other. Thus the operations which consist in replacing x by nx and by x/n respectively, in any rational function of x, are definite inverse operations, if n is any assigned