The Collected Papers of William Burnside

William Burnside [1852-1927] was a scholar of international renown, a colourful figure, and a pure mathematician who established abstract algebra as a subject of serious study in Britain. This edition of Collected Papers, enhanced by a series of critical essays, is of major importance to scholars in group theory and the history and philosophy of mathematics.

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William Burnside was one of the three most important algebraists who were involved in the transformation of group theory from its nineteenth-century origins to a deeper twentieth-century subject. Building on work of earlier mathematicians, they were able to develop sophisticated tools for solving difficult problems. His works are of enormous historical importance; they remain also a source of inspiration and information. The works of his contemporaries, such as Klein, Frobenius, Schur, have been published as also have the works of his immediate successors such as Phillip Hall.

All of Burnside's papers are reproduced here, organized chronologically and with a detailed bibliography. Walter Feit has contributed a foreword, and a collection of introductory essays are included to provide a commentary on Burnside's work and set it in perspective along with a modern biography that draws on archive material.

This is the first reference volume of Burnside's collected papers, enhanced by a series of critical essays on his work, and is important for group theorists and historians and philosophers of mathematics and fills the gap in this area of literature.