Daniel Gorenstein - Böcker

Never before in the history of mathematics has there been an individual theorem whose proof has required 10,000 journal pages of closely reasoned argument. Who could read such a proof, let alone communicate it to others? But the classification of all finite simple groups is such a theorem-its complete proof, developed over a 30-year period by about 100 group theorists, is the union of some 500 journal articles covering approximately 10,000 printed pages. How then is one who has lived through it all to convey the richness and variety of this monumental achievement? Yet such an attempt must be made, for without the existence of a coherent exposition of the total proof, there is a very real danger that it will gradually become lost to the living world of mathematics, buried within the dusty pages of forgotten journals. For it is almost impossible for the uninitiated to find the way through the tangled proof without an experienced guide; even the 500 papers themselves require careful selection from among some 2,000 articles on simple group theory, which together include often attractive byways, but which serve only to delay the journey.

With the classification of finite groups an era of research in that subject ended. In this symposium volume twenty-nine key figures in the classification programme analyse the likely directions research will take in the future.

Never before in the history of mathematics has there been an individual theorem whose proof has required 10,000 journal pages of closely reasoned argument. Who could read such a proof, let alone communicate it to others? But the classification of all finite simple groups is such a theorem-its complete proof, developed over a 30-year period by about 100 group theorists, is the union of some 500 journal articles covering approximately 10,000 printed pages. How then is one who has lived through it all to convey the richness and variety of this monumental achievement? Yet such an attempt must be made, for without the existence of a coherent exposition of the total proof, there is a very real danger that it will gradually become lost to the living world of mathematics, buried within the dusty pages of forgotten journals. For it is almost impossible for the uninitiated to find the way through the tangled proof without an experienced guide; even the 500 papers themselves require careful selection from among some 2,000 articles on simple group theory, which together include often attractive byways, but which serve only to delay the journey.

In February 1981, the classification of the finite simple groups (Dl)* was completed,t. * representing one of the most remarkable achievements in the history or mathematics. Involving the combined efforts of several hundred mathematicians from around the world over a period of 30 years, the full proof covered something between 5,000 and 10,000 journal pages, spread over 300 to 500 individual papers. The single result that, more than any other, opened up the field and foreshadowed the vastness of the full classification proof was the celebrated theorem of Walter Feit and John Thompson in 1962, which stated that every finite group of odd order (D2) is solvable (D3)-a statement expressi­ ble in a single line, yet its proof required a full 255-page issue of the Pacific 10urnal of Mathematics [93]. Soon thereafter, in 1965, came the first new sporadic simple group in over 100 years, the Zvonimir Janko group 1 , to further stimulate the 1 'To make the book as self-contained as possible. we are including definitions of various terms as they occur in the text. However. in order not to disrupt the continuity of the discussion. we have placed them at the end of the Introduction. We denote these definitions by (DI). (D2), (D3). etc.

This book is the ninth volume in a series whose goal is to furnish a careful and largely self-contained proof of the classification theorem for the finite simple groups. Having completed the classification of the simple groups of odd type as well as the classification of the simple groups of generic even type (modulo uniqueness theorems to appear later), the current volume begins the classification of the finite simple groups of special even type. The principal result of this volume is a classification of the groups of bicharacteristic type, i.e., of both even type and of $p$-type for a suitable odd prime $p$. It is here that the largest sporadic groups emerge, namely the Monster, the Baby Monster, the largest Conway group, and the three Fischer groups, along with six finite groups of Lie type over small fields, several of which play a major role as subgroups or sections of these sporadic groups.

This book is the tenth in a series of volumes whose aim is to provide a complete proof of the classification theorem for the finite simple groups based on a fairly short and clearly enumerated set of background results. Specifically, this book completes our identification of the simple groups of bicharacteristic type begun in the ninth volume of the series (see SURV/40.9). This is a fascinating set of simple groups which have properties in common with matrix groups (or, more generally, groups of Lie type) defined both over fields of characteristic 2 and over fields of characteristic 3. This set includes 11 of the celebrated 26 sporadic simple groups along with several of their large simple subgroups. Together with SURV/40.9, this volume provides the first unified treatment of this class of simple groups.

The theory of finite simple groups enjoyed a period of spectacular activity in the 1950s and 1960s. The first edition of Gorenstein's book was published in 1968, at the time of some of the first major classification results. The second edition was published in 1980, when it was clear that the classification was understood and the proof was within reach. Gorenstein's treatment of the subject proved prescient, as many of the developments between the two editions could be seen as continuations of the material in the book. Even now, the book remains one of the best sources for an introduction to finite groups and the classification of the simple groups. Gorenstein's insight provides a guiding light through the many pages that have been dedicated to the proof.

The classification of finite simple groups is a landmark result of modern mathematics. The multipart series of monographs which is being published by the AMS (Volume 40.1-40.7 and future volumes) represents the culmination of a century-long project involving the efforts of scores of mathematicians published in hundreds of journal articles, books, and doctoral theses, totaling an estimated 15,000 pages. This part 7 of the series is the middle of a trilogy (Volume 40.5, Volume 40.7, and forthcoming Volume 40.8) treating the Generic Case, i.e., the identification of the alternating groups of degree at least 13 and most of the finite simple groups of Lie type and Lie rank at least 4. Moreover, Volumes 40.4-40.8 of this series will provide a complete treatment of the simple groups of odd type, i.e., the alternating groups (with two exceptions) and the groups of Lie type defined over a finite field of odd order, as well as some of the sporadic simple groups. In particular, this volume completes the construction, begun in Volume 40.5, of a collection of neighboring centralizers of a particularly nice form. All of this is then applied to complete the identification of the alternating groups of degree at least 13. The book is suitable for graduate students and researchers interested in the theory of finite groups.