Customer Reviews

Problems in Group Theory

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Don't waste too much time deciding whether or not to purchase this little gem, JUST BUY IT!!. Considering the retail price (thanks Dover) you will definitly get much more than your moneys worth out of this book. So why four stars? I chose to rate Dixon's text at the level of fours stars because of my selfish desire of wishing Dixon had included more problems. It actually deserves five stars. Dixon has done an excellent job of compiling a relatively wide assortment of problems (from subgroups to representations), some problems are routine, some clever, some subtle and some difficult. But all together, the provided assortment of problems in this book have been a complete joy to work through and I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in group theory, to those who enjoy straining their brains while working through mathematical problems and to those graduate students who are studying for qualifying exams.

This is a problem source book for topics in group theory. It can be a great companion for students who are sweating trying to find solutions to homework problems in a group theory course. But perhaps, the topics inside the book may not be what you're looking for. However, it was a great idea for the author to create this book.

This is a good compilation of problems in Group Theory. Most of the problems are non-trivial and come from a variety of published research articles. The problems cover all aspects of the elementary theory, starting from subgroups, commutators up to representations and linear groups. While I think that the book is useful, it is by no means an exhaustive collection of all possible problems that one may ever encounter. By systematically working this book, one will however, definitely be able to grasp and appreciate the nuances of how to go about working with finite groups. Given that this book is quite old, it perhaps does not cover things such as semidirect products, group actions etc. to the level that the average graduate course covers nowadays. In conclusion, it is a necessary but not entirely sufficient coverage of problems in group theory.

If you are teaching a course in groups, this would make a good source of problems that have answers. I can't swear that you'll get praise for using the problems: some are pretty difficult,
but they should keep an advanced class busy for three units and a quarter of work. For me I would like more a complete explanation of notation. One can't bridge to Physics and Chemistry point groups used in spectroscopy very easy from this book,or to Cartan groups and Dynkin diagrams. It needs an introduction to Lie Algebras as well. As a result for graduate students it is dated somewhat, but the basic never change. A goods solid problems book
to go with a more modern group theory text.