A history of the Poincaré-Birkhoff-Witt theorem (Q2571083)

This is a history of the Poincaré-Birkhoff-Witt theorem, which asserts that every Lie algebra over a field is faithfully represented in its universal associative enveloping algebra. After Lie's three fundamental theorems there is a discussion of the proof by Poincaré, who worked with differential operators since abstract Lie algebras were not defined until the 1930s. Next is Birkhoff's proof, which implicitly uses the diamond lemma, well before the latter was stated, while Witt bases his proof on a presentation of the symmetric group. The result became known as the Birkhoff-Witt theorem; it acquired the third name in the exposition by Bourbaki in 1960. There follows an account of developments in the second half of the twentieth century, in particular extensions to Lie algebras over more general rings and the relations to Hopf algebras, Leibniz algebras and digebras.