Hesse's principle of transfer and the representation of Lie algebras (Q1202997)

Ludwig Otto Hesse (1811-1874) introduced his Principle of Transfer in 1866, as an analogue of the well-known Principle of Duality for the projective geometry of the plane, as is usually expressed in the duality of Pascal's and Brianchon's Theorems. The idea was to set up a one-to-one correspondence between points \(P=(x,y)\) in the plane and the pairs of points \(p=\{\lambda_ 1,\lambda_ 2\}\) belonging to the line Hesse referred to as the fundamental line. The correspondence denoted by \(\Phi:P\to p\) assigned, to a fixed point \(P=(x,y)\), the pair \(p=\{\lambda_ 1,\lambda_ 2\}\) of the roots of \(\varphi(\lambda;x,y)=A\lambda^ 2+B\lambda+C=0\), where \(A,B,C\) are linear expressions in \(x\) and \(y\). This correspondence is established if the context is that of complex projective plane and line and if the matrix of coefficients in \(A,B,C\) is nonsingular. Theorems of one class of objects then transfer automatically to theorems about the other class. This interesting article traces the development and transformation of the idea through the works of notable mathematicians of the time. Klein realized that Hesse's principle was close to some of his ideas and this perhaps helped him to articulate the ideas in the Erlanger Programm. This way leads to representation theories of Lie algebras. Cayley's quasigeometrical interpretation of certain systems of forms with later interpretations of Fano, Segre and Study were another widening of the scope of the principle. Fano's generalization of Hesse's Principle enabled further generalizations made by Cartan, who became acquainted with the principle through preparing a (thorough) revision of Fano's article for the French edition of the Encyklopädie. Cartan was motivated by his interests in the group-theoretic implications of the Principle viewed in the light of the problems and methods of Lie's theory, such as Killing's problem and the theory of weights. What had thus originated as a device for generating geometrical theorems had become a device for generating irreducible representations of semisimple Lie algebras. The question whether Fano's Encyklopädie article had inspired Cartan to come up with the (Cartan) product construction or whether he saw his construction in light of Hesse's principle (as in the French edition in 1915) remains still open.