The Whitney algebra of a matroid (Q1584655)

Although introduction of technical detail would make this review excessively long, we note that this very substantial paper of 48 printed pages does well serve as an excellent introduction not only to the Whitney algebra of a matroid \(M\), but also as a demonstration of how this algebra \(W\) associated with \(M\) in a rather intricate (but eventually also understood as natural) way does indeed permit algebraization of important questions which may then be answered in a manner which yields interesting properties of such algebras, thus permitting efficient implementation of further arguments via these properties. For example, it is shown that if a matroid \(M\) is representable, then no product of independent words (juxtapositions of finite collections of independent elements) is equal to zero in the Whitney algebra \(W\) of \(M\). Using the theory developed one is e.g. able to demonstrate ``by calculation'' that the Fano matroid is only representable over fields of characteristic two via a result which follows from the observation quoted. An added feature of historical interest is the last section which not only shows the path taken in the development of this research but provides one more record of the role played by a great mathematician (i.e., G.-C. Rota) in steering a very complicated set of intuitions to a finished structure that properly describes in an optimal way the interrelationship of a package of ideas not heretofore tuned quite so well.