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arXiv · 1904.06573

Frobenius's last proof

Peter G. Doyle
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Abstract

Around about 1917, Issai Schur rediscovered the Rogers-Ramanujan identities, and proved a system of polynomial identities that imply them. Schur wrote that Georg Frobenius (his former advisor) had shown him a simple, direct proof of these polynomial identities. Schur did not see fit to reveal Frobenius's proof, preferring his own rather complicated proof. But it is easy enough to guess what this `simple, direct' proof must have been. As Frobenius died in 1917, we may call this `Frobenius's last proof'.

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Peter G. Doyle. 2019-04-13. Frobenius's last proof. https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.06573

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