History topic: Abstract linear spaces

Cartesian geometry, introduced by Fermat and Descartes around 1636, had a very large influence
on mathematics bringing algebraic methods into geometry. By the middle of the 19th Century
however there was some dissatisfaction with these coordinate methods and people began to
search for direct methods, i.e. methods of synthetic geometry which were coordinate free.
It is possible however to trace the beginning of the vector concept back to the beginning of the
19th Century with the work of Bolzano. In 1804 he published a work on the foundations of
elementary geometry Betrachtungen über einige Gegenstände der Elementargoemetrie. Bolzano,
in this book, considers points, lines and planes as undefined elements and defines operations on
them. This is an important step in the axiomatisation of geometry and an early move towards the
necessary abstraction for the concept of a linear space to arise.
The move away from coordinate geometry was mainly due to the work of Poncelet and Chasles
who were the founders of synthetic geometry. The parallel development in analysis was to move
from spaces of concrete objects such as sequence spaces towards abstract linear spaces. Instead
of substitutions defined by matrices, abstract linear operators must be defined on abstract linear
spaces.
In 1827 Möbius published Der barycentrische Calcul a geometrical book which studies
transformations of lines and conics. The novel feature of this work is the introduction of
barycentric coordinates. Given any triangle ABC then if weights a, b and c are placed at A, B and
C respectively then a point P, the centre of gravity, is determined. Möbius showed that every
point P in the plane is determined by the homogeneous coordinates [a,b,c], the weights required
to be placed at A, B and C to give the centre of gravity at P. The importance here is that Möbius
was considering directed quantities, an early appearence of vectors.
In 1837 Möbius published a book on statics in which he clearly states the idea of resolving a
vector quantity along two specified axes.
Between these two works of Möbius, a geometrical work by Bellavitis was published in 1832
which also contains vector type quantities. His basic objects are line segments AB and he
considers AB and BA as two distinct objects. He defines two line segments as 'equipollent' if they
are equal and parallel, so, in modern notation, two line segments are equipollent if they represent
the same vector. Bellavitis then defines the 'equipollent sum of line segments' and obtains an
'equipollent calculus' which is essentially a vector space.
In 1814 Argand had represented the complex numbers as points on the plane, that is as ordered
pairs of real numbers. Hamilton represented the complex numbers as a two dimensional vector
space over the reals although of course he did not use these general abstract terms. He presented
these results in a paper to the Irish Academy in 1833. He spent the next 10 years of his life trying
to define a multiplication on the 3-dimensional vector space over the reals. Hamilton's
quaternions, published in 1843, was an important example of a 4-dimensional vector space but,
particularly with Tait's work on quaternions published in 1873, there was to be some competition
between vector and quaternion methods.

In 1857 Cayley introduced matrix algebras, helping the move towards more general abstract
systems by adding to the different types of structural laws being studied. In 1858 Cayley noticed
that the quaternions could be represented by matrices.
In 1867 Laguerre wrote a letter to Hermite Sur le calcul des systèmes linéaires. His systèmes
linéaires is a table of coefficients of a system of linear equations denoted by a single upper-case
letter and Laguerre defines addition, subtraction and multiplication of of these linear sysyems. In
this work Laguerre aims to unify algebraic systems such as complex numbers, Hamilton's
quaternions and notions introduced by Galois and by Cauchy.
Laguerre's work on linear systems was followed up by a paper by Carvallo in 1891. In this paper
he defines operators on vector functions and draws a clear distinction between operators and
matrices.
To understand the difference between the notions of an operator and a matrix, it suffices to say
that, if one changes the coordinate system, one obtains a different matrix to represent the same
vector function, but the same operator.
Another mathematician who was moving towards geometry without coordinates was Grassmann.
His work is highly original but the notion of barycentric coordinates introduced by Möbius was
his main motivation. Grassmann's contribution Die Ausdehnungslehre appeared in several
different versions. The first was in 1844 but it was a very difficult work to read, and clearly did
not find favour with mathematicians, so Grassmann tried to produce a more readable version
which appeared in 1862. Clebsch inspired Grassmann to work on this new version.
Grassmann studied an algebra whose elements are not specified, so are abstract quantities. He
considers systems of elements on which he defines a formal operation of addition, scalar
multiplication and multiplication. He starts with undefined elements which he calls 'simple
quantities' and generates more complex quantities using specified rules.
But ... I go further, since I call these not just quantities but simple quantities. There are other
quantities which are themselves compounded quantities and whose characteristics are as
distinct relative to each other as the characteristics of the different simple quantities are to each
other. These quantities come about through addition of higher forms ...
His work contains the familiar laws of vector spaces but, since he also has a multiplication
defined, his structures satisfy the properties of what are today called algebras. The precise
structures are now known as Grassmann algebras. The ideas of linearly independent and linearly
dependent sets of elements are clearly contained in Grassmann's work as is the idea of dimension
(although he does not use the term). The scalar product also appears in Grassmann's 1844 work.
Grassmann's 1862 version of Die Ausdehnungslehre has a long introduction in which Grassmann
gives a summary of his theory. In this introduction he also defends his formal methods which
had clearly been objected to by a number of mathematicians. Grassmann's justification comes
very close to saying that he is setting up an axiomatic theory and this shows that he is well ahead
of his time.
Cauchy and Saint-Venant have some claims to have invented similar systems to Grassmann.
Saint-Venant's claim is a fair one since he published a work in 1845 in which he multiples line
segments in an analogous way to Grassmann. In fact when Grassmann read Saint-Venant's paper
he realised that Saint-Venant had not read his 1844 work and sent two copies of the relevant
parts to Cauchy, asking him to pass one copy to Saint-Venant.
However, rather typically of Cauchy, in 1853 he published Sur les clefs algébrique in Comptes
Rendus which describes a formal symbolic method which coincides with that of Grassmann's
method (but makes no reference to Grassmann). Grassmann complained to the Académie des
Sciences that his work had priority over Cauchy's and, in 1854, a committee was set up to
investigate who had priority. We still await the committee's report!
The first to see the importance of Grassmann's work was Hankel. In 1867 he wrote a paper
Theorie der complexen Zahlensysteme concerning formal systems where combination of the
symbols are abstractly defined. He credits Grassmann's Die Ausdehnungslehre as giving the
foundation for his work.
The first to give an axiomatic definition of a real linear space was Peano in a book published in
Torino in 1888. He credits Leibniz, Möbius's 1827 work, Grassmann's 1844 work and Hamilton's
work on quaternions as providing ideas which led him to his formal calculus.
Peano's 1888 book Calcolo geometrico secondo l'Ausdehnungslehre di H. Grassmann preceduto
dalle operazioni della logica deduttiva is remarkable. It gives the basic calculus of set operation

introducing the modern notation ∩, ∪, for intersection, union and an element of. It was
many years before this notation was to become accepted, in fact Peano's book seems to have had
very little influence for many years. It is equally remarkable for containing an almost modern
introduction to linear spaces and linear algebra.
In Chapter IX of the book Peano gives axioms for a linear space.
It is hard to believe that Peano writes the following in 1888. It could almost come from a 1988
book! The first is for equality of elements

1. (a = b) if and only if (b = a), if (a = b) and (b = c) then (a = c).

2. The sum of two objects a and b is defined, i.e. an object is defined denoted by a + b, also
belonging to the system, which satisfies:
If (a = b) then (a + c = b + c), a + b = b + a, a + (b + c) = (a + b) + c,
and the common value of the last equality is denoted by a + b + c.
3. If a is an object of the system and m a positive integer, then we understand by ma the sum
of m objects equal to a. It is easy to see that for objects a, b, ... of the system and
positive integers m, n, ... one has
If (a = b) then (ma = mb), m(a+b) = ma+mb, (m+n)a = ma+na,
m(na) = mna, 1a = a.
We suppose that for any real number m the notation ma has a meaning such that the
preceeding equations are valid.

Peano goes on to state the existence of a zero object 0 and says that 0a = 0, that a - b means a +
(-b) and states it is easy to show that a - a = 0 and 0 + a = a.
Peano defines a linear system to be any system of objects satisfying his four conditions. He goes
on to define dependent objects and independent objects. He then defines dimension.
Definition: The number of the dimensions of a linear system is the maximal number of linearly
independent objects in the system.
He proves that finite dimensional spaces have a basis and gives examples of infinite dimensional
linear spaces. Peano considers entire functions f(x) of a variable x, defines the sum of f1(x) and
f2(x) and the product of f(x) by a real number m. He says:-
If one considers only functions of degree n, then these functions form a linear system with n + 1
dimensions, the entire functions of arbitrary degree form a linear system with infinitely many
dimensions.
Peano defines linear operators on a linear space, shows that by using coordinates one obtains a
matrix. He defines the sum and product of linear operators.
In the 1890's Pincherle worked on a formal theory of linear operators on an infinite dimensional
vector space. However Pincherle did not base his work on that of Peano, rather on the abstract
operator theory of Leibniz and d'Alembert. Like so much work in this area it had very little
immediate impact and axiomatic infinite dimensional vector spaces were not studied again until
Banach and his associates took up the topic in the 1920's.
Although never attaining the level of abstraction which Peano had achieved, Hilbert and his
student Schmidt looked at infinite dimensional spaces of functions in 1904. Schmidt introduced a
move towards abstraction in 1908 introducing geometrical language into Hilbert space theory.
The fully axiomatic approach appeared in Banach's 1920 doctoral dissertation.