Poincaré's Proof of the so-called Birkhoff-Witt Theorem
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A methodical analysis of the research related to the article, ``Sur les groupes continus'', of Henri Poincaré reveals many historical misconceptions and inaccuracies regarding his contribution to Lie theory. A thorough reading of this article confirms the precedence of his discovery of many important concepts, especially that of the \textit{universal enveloping algebra} of a Lie algebra over a field of characteristic zero, the \textit{% canonical map} (\textit{symmetrization}) of the symmetric algebra onto the universal enveloping algebra. The essential part of this article consists of a detailed discussion of his rigorous, complete, and enlightening proof of the so-called Birkhoff-Witt theorem.
28 pages; Latex in Scientific Word; use Tcilatex.tex. Revue d'Histoire des Mathe'matiques, Soc. Math. France (to appear in 2000)
28 pages; Latex in Scientific Word; use Tcilatex.tex. Revue d'Histoire des Mathe'matiques, Soc. Math. France (to appear in 2000)