Verbal definitions of operations on groups (Q1180698)

\textit{G. M. Bergman} [ibid. 25, No. 2, 107-120 (1988; Zbl 0607.08003)] has recently shown that any group with additional operations can be embedded in an overgroup in which the additional operations are defined verbally. Specifically, Bergman proved that for every group \(A\) and every finite collection of operations \(f_ 1,\dots,f_ r\) of finite arities \(n_ 1,\dots,n_ r\) on the underlying set of \(A\), there is a group \(G\) containing \(A\), a triple of elements \(c_ 1\), \(c_ 2\), \(c_ 3\) of \(G\), and a set of group words \(w_ 1,\dots,w_ r\) with \(w_ i\) a word on \(n_ i+3\) variables, such that in \(G\) \[ f_ i(a_ 1,\dots,a_{n_ i})=w_ i(a_ 1,\dots,a_{n_ i},c_ 1,c_ 2,c_ 3) \] for all \(i\), \(1\leq i\leq r\), and all \(a_ 1,\dots,a_{n_ i}\in A\). We present here a quite different and more direct construction in which the words \(w_ i\) involve only one constant instead of three. We require, however, that \(f_ i(e,\dots,e)=e\) for \(1\leq i\leq r\), where \(e\) is the identity element of \(A\).