Nilpotent elements in Lie algebras (Q919449)

A classical result of \textit{Fine} and \textit{Herstein} is that the number of n by n nilpotent matrices with entries in GF(q) is a power of q, that power being \(n^ 2-n\). Kaplansky formulates an analogous problem in Lie algebras as follows: For a simple Lie algebra L of n by n matrices with entries from a field of q elements, is the number of nilpotent matrices q to a power, that power being dim L-rank L? The result is known to hold for algebras A-G, except for certain bad primes. The author shows that the result holds for the Witt algebra in its realization as derivations of k[x], \(x^ p=0\) where q is a power of the prime p. He also adds a formula for the number of symmetric nilpotent 3 by 3 matrices over a field of q elements and also provides another proof of the Fine-Herstein Theorem.