No label defined (Q3972069)

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0699.00028.] This paper is partly expository with a sprinkling of new results and ideas. Our goal is to achieve a deeper understanding of finite groups. To this end, we perhaps raise more questions than we answer. One of the broad, even vague, questions which motivated the following discussion is, ``Why is the number of groups of order \(n\) such a seemingly chaotic function of \(n\)?'' One of our goals, not yet fully achieved, is to ``see'' in some geometric way ``why'' there are the number of groups of order \(n\) that there are. We hope that new insights into the structure of finite groups will be a product of this investigation. This paper is a written (and expanded) version of a talk given at the 36th Summer Research Institute of the American Mathematical Society, Durham, New Hamshire, July 3-23, 1988. We include here some results discovered since the Summer Research Institute.