History of Science and Mathematics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people interested in the history and origins of science and mathematics. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I am doing a research project on the history of group theory, and want to know about the early developments on the subject. There are plenty of proofs about why the projective special linear group over a finite field is simple, with a few exceptions.
According to Wikipedia, proofs of this result has been around since 1830s, and I want to inspect on the original or some early proof of it. Where can I find such old materials?
In 1831, Galois claimed simplicity when $n = 2$ and $q = p$ is a prime greater than $3$ without proof. The first paragraph here has references to later proofs of the result you ask about, first when $q$ is prime and then general $q$. These proofs were decades later, in 1870 and the 1890s.
