Weber, Heinrich

It was Heinrich Weber, in 1882, who first gave a purely axiomatic description of a group independently of the nature of its elements. Today, groups are fundamental entities in abstract algebra and are of considerable importance in geometry, physics, and chemistry.

…in the classical tradition was Heinrich Weber’s Lehrbuch der Algebra (1895; “Textbook of Algebra”), which codified the achievements and current dominant views of the subject and remained highly influential for several decades. At its centre was a well-elaborated, systematic conception of the various systems of numbers, built as a rigorous…