nLab Wilhelm Magnus

Wilhelm Magnus (1907-19090) was a German mathematician who worked in combinatorial group theory.

• Wikipedia page

• St. Andrews history page

Selected writings

On understanding the braid group as a mapping class group:

• Wilhelm Magnus, Über Automorphismen von Fundamentalgruppen berandeter Flächen, Mathematische Annalen 109 (1934) 617–646 [doi:10.1007/BF01449158]

Early discussion of the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff formula:

• Wilhelm Magnus, A connection between the Baker-Hausdorff formula and a problem of Burnside, Ann. of Math. 52 (1950) 111-126

Discovering so called Magnus expansion, as an application of Lie theory to differential equations:

• Wilhelm Magnus, On the exponential solution of differential equations for a linear operator, Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 7:4 (1954) 649–673 [doi]

An elementary introduction to group theory via Cayley graphs:

• Israel Grossman, Wilhelm Magnus: Groups and Their Graphs, Random House (1964), reprinted by: Anneli Lax New Mathematical Library 14 MMA (1992) [jstor:10.4169/j.ctt19b9mc7]

On combinatorial group theory (presentations of groups):

• Wilhelm Magnus, A. Karras, D. Solitar, Combinatorial group theory: Presentation of groups in terms of generators and relations, Courier Corporation (1966, 2004) [ISBN:0-486-43830-9, GoogleBooks]

category: people