A problem of Cayley from 1857 and how he could have solved it (Q2575012): Difference between revisions

The paper under review studies a classical problem initiated by Cayley in 1857. Cayley studied systems of homogeneous ternary equations of degrees 1, 2, 3, respectively. In a paper of 1857, \textit{A. Cayley} [Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. London XXLVII, 717--726 (1857)], he computed the resultant of such a system in terms of the coefficients. (The paper under review gives an account of the results of Cayley; furthermore, the interested reader may have a look at the original paper. Although it might be somewhat difficult to get a copy of a paper published in 1857, one finds an online version at the address \texttt{http://www.hti.umich.edu/u/umhistmath/.}) While the original problem was resolved in Cayley's paper, there was another, more complicated problem concerning such systems. It was the following. How can one express the symmetric functions of the solutions of any two of the equations in terms of the coefficients? Cayley managed to compute these symmetric functions only of low degree and in some cases. The paper under review gives the complete solution to the problem stated above. It should be noted that the proofs make use of facts and techniques well known at Cayley's time. The paper is well written and rich with interesting bits and pieces. It will be of interest not only to working mathematicians but also for specialists in history of mathematics.