Structural elements in functional analysis: Three notes of Fréchet on linear operations (Q610711)

This paper is a contribution to understanding the emergence of Functional Analysis by looking into three notes of Maurice Fréchet, all entitled ``Sur les opérations linéaires'', published in the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, in (1904; JFM 35.0389.03), (1905; JFM 36.0449.04) and (1907; JFM 38.0370.08). The fact that the notes were published in the new journal of the AMS is in itself a good question [\textit{A. E. Taylor}, Arch. Hist. Exact Sci. 27, 233--295 (1982; Zbl 0493.01020), p.\,241]. The three notes are discussions of earlier works in the emergent area of functional analysis. Fréchet opens the first note with the definition of operation linéaire given by Hadamard and with a fundamental theorem, published the year before. Fréchet says he will give a new demonstration of the theorem. The development of linear operations in series is an important aspect of Fréchet's work. The author makes a good analysis of the way Fréchet deals with series in the context of linear operations. He analyzes Fréchet's comments on earlier works and how Fréchet was led to generalize and extend the results of Hadamard to cases that had not been contemplated by contemporaries. The author claims, with convincing arguments, that Fréchet was able to anticipate the concept of structure in the effort to generalize the results of his contemporaries. The present article also offers an interesting general reflection on the concept of structure.