Group Theory by W. R. Scott

Product Description

Clear, well-organized coverage of most standard theorems: isomorphism theorems, transformations and subgroups, direct sums, abelian groups, etc. Over 500 exercises. Undergraduate-level.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #326034 in Books
Published on: 1987-06-01
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
512 pages
Customer Reviews

An all-business bargain book.
This book is fantastic in my opinion. The ball gets rolling right away, and proceeds in a concise, rigorous fashion all the way to the end. "Pedantic" would be precisely the wrong word to describe the book. "Rigorous" is more like it. It doesn't bother for one second with the "hold my hands..." approach and certainly wastes no time on extraneous motivational stuff. For that, perhaps one should try Tony Robbins.

As a physicist, I first learned group theory from Tinkham's excellent "Group Theory and Quantum Mechanics," also a Dover, which is geared on all cylinders toward physical applications. There are times however, I want nothing but mathematics in all its stirling beauty. Definitions -> logic -> theorems. No namby-pamby stuff.

I had such a great time reading this book. If you have a soft spot for the prestineness of mathematics, I suspect you will enjoy this book as much as I did.

An excellent textbook
"Group Theory" (W.R.Scott) is an excellent textbook, with an axiomatic, temperate style which avoid useless gossiping; thanks to such concision, this book contains numerous results generally missing in other courses on the same subject, and often emphasizes interesting variations of some theories.
A great deal of investigation exercises complete this reference work. To my opinion, this book should be recommended to anyone who wants to begin studies on group theory.

No want of better books on the subject
This is probably the worst book on Group Theory a beginner could buy. If you're not a beginner, the book is dated and quite pedantic. The book lacks historic motivation, it lacks algebraic and geometric motivation, it lacks combinatorial and number-theoretic motivation -- so what then is it's motivation? Good question. It even lacks a comprehensive bibliography. If E. Galois was alive, I'm sure he'd ask for a duel with W.R. Scott for the pedantic way he's treated the subject. But don't expect to even find one paragraph about E. Galois in this book, It's utterly devoid of historic comment.

I give this book two stars because it's a cheap Dover edition, and as such doesn't hurt the pocket book much. But trust me, there is no want of better books on the subject. Try the classics on Group Theory by Hall, Kurosh or Zassenhaus before you try this one.