Papers on Group Theory and Topology

Max Dehn

Papers on Group Theory

and Topology
Translated and Introduced by
John Stillwell

With 151 Illustrations

Springer-Verlag
New York Berlin Heidelberg
London Paris Tokyo
John Stillwell
Department of Mathematics
Monash University, Clayton
Victoria 3168, Australia

AMS Classification: 01-A75, 55-03, 20 F 05,20 F 32

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Dehn, Max, 1878-1952.
Papers on group theory and topology.
Includes bibliographies.
I. Combinatorial group theory-Collected works.
2. Topology-Collected works. I. Title.
QA17I.D393A25 1987 512'.22 87-317

© 1987 by Springer-Verlag New York Inc.

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1987
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Printed and bounded by R.R. Donnelley & Sons, Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Printed in the United States of America

987654321

ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-9107-7 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-4668-8

DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4612-4668-8
 PREFACE

The work of Max Dehn (1878-1952) has been quietly influential in

mathematics since the beginning of the 20th century. In 1900 he became

the first to solve one of the famous Hilbert problems (the third, on the

decomposition of polyhedra), in 1907 he collaborated with Heegaard to produce

the first survey of topology, and in 1910 he began publishing his own

investigations in topology and combinatorial group theory. His influence

is apparent in the terms Dehn's algorithm, Dehn's lemma and Dehn surgery

(and Dehnsche Gruppenbilder, generally known in English as Cayley diagrams),

but direct access to his work has been difficult. No edition of his

works has been produced, and some of his most important results were never

published, at least not by him.

The present volume is a modest attempt to bring Dehn's work to a

wider audience, particularly topologists and group theorists curious about

the origins of their subject and interested in mining the sources for new

ideas. It consists of English translations of eight works : five of

Dehn's major papers in topology and combinatorial group theory, and three

unpublished works which illuminate the published papers and contain some

results not available elsewhere. In addition, I have written a short

introduction to each work, summarising its contents and trying to establish

its place among related works of Dehn and others, and I have added an

appendix on the Dehn-Nielsen theorem (often known simply as Nielsen's

theorem) . The latter theorem was never published by Dehn, though Nielsen

gives him credit for it, and Dehn's approach to the theorem became forgotten

when Nielsen (1927) buried it in a l80-page paper. In fact, Dehn's

approach can be made to work quite simply, as the appendix demonstrates.

In surface topology and the associated theory of fuchsian groups,

Dehn's work fills a gap between the works of Poincare and Nielsen.

The three together are the main sources of contemporary work in this

field, by Thurston in particular. with the recent publication of my

translations of poincare's Papers on Fuchsian Functions (Springer-Verlag

1985) and Nielsen's Collected Mathematical Papers (Birkhauser 1986),

these sources are now available in what I hope is a convenient form.

The present volume would not have been possible without the generosity

and encouragement of Wilhelm Magnus. He provided me with copies of

important unpublished manuscripts of Dehn and put me in contact with

Dehn's widow, Mrs. Toni Dehn, who very kindly gave permission for trans-

lations of these manuscripts to be published. Thanks are also due to

B.G. Teubner and Co. for permission to publish the papers which originally

appeared in Mathematische Annalen, to the Institut Mittag-Leffler for

permission to publish the paper from Acta Mathematica, and to the Mathe-

matisches Seminar of the University of Hamburg for permission to publish the

Otto Schreier paper whose translation is included as an appendix to

Paper 6.

The various papers in this book were typed by Anne-Marie Vandenberg

and Joan Williams, at a time when publication was not foreseen. It is

a tribute to the quality of their work that the book could be photographed

directly from their typescripts. Wilhelm Magnus and Dave Johnson read

large portions of the book and saved me from many errors. To all these

friends and colleagues I offer my sincere thanks.

 CONTENTS

Translator's Introduction 1 1

Paper 1 : Lectures on group theory 5

Translator's Introduction 2 47

Paper 2 : Lectures on surface topology 52

Translator's Introduction 3 86

Paper 3 : On the topology of three-dimensional space

(Uber die Topologie des dreidimensionalen Raumes.

Math. Ann. 69, (1910), 137-168) 92

Translator's Introduction 4 127

Paper 4 : On infinite discontinuous groups

(Uber unendliche diskontinuierliche Gruppen.

Math. Ann. 71 (1912), 116-144) 133

Translator's Introduction 5 179

Paper 5 : Transformation of curves on two-sided surfaces

(Transformation der Kurven auf zweiseitigen Flachen.

Math. Ann. 72 (1912), 413-421) 183

Translator's Introduction 6 200

Paper 6 : The two trefoil knots

(Die beiden Kleeblattschlingen.

Math. Ann. 75 (1914), 402-413) 203

Appendix to Paper 6

(Uber die Gruppen AaBb = 1, by Otto Schreier,

Abh. Math. Sem. Univ. Hamburg 3 (1924), 167-169) 224

Translator's Introduction 7 229

Paper 7 : On curve systems on two-sided surfaces,

with application to the mapping problem.

(Uber Kurvensysteme auf zweiseitigen Flachen

mit Anwendung auf das Abbildungsproblem.
Vortrag (erganzt) im math. Kolloquium,
Breslau 11/2/1922) 234
Translator's Introduction 8 253

Paper 8 : The group of mapping classes

(Die Gruppe der Abbildungsklassen.

Acta Math. 69 (1938), 135-206) 256

Appendix The Dehn-Nielsen theorem 363