6
$\begingroup$

Ok, so abelian groups are solvable.

And Thm II.8.5 of Hungerford says A group is solvable iff it has a solvable series. (The group may be finite or infinite.)

However, I can't seem to find a solvable series for $\mathbb{Z}$, for example $\mathbb{Z},2\mathbb{Z},6\mathbb{Z},\ldots$ will not terminate in the identity group.

Someone said that $\mathbb{Z},\left\{0\right\}$ is a solvable series for $\mathbb{Z}$. Is this a definition set by Hungerford since $\mathbb{Z},\left\{0\right\}$ is not even a composition series : $\mathbb{Z}/\left\{0\right\}$ is not a simple group.

  • 1
    Crosspost from [MO](http://mathoverflow.net/questions/77512/is-z-a-solvable-group).2011-10-08
  • 3
    It was OffT at MO so I posted it here. It's already deleted there.2011-10-08
  • 0
    What is Hungerford's definition of a solvable series? The Wikipedia definition for solvable group is just that the derived series $G, G', G'', \ldots$ terminates at the trivial group - which clearly happens for any abelian group since $G'$ is trivial if $G$ is abelian.2011-10-08
  • 2
    Are you sure they don't? I haven't checked, but it seems that the tower given by $i_k: 2^k \mathbb{Z} \to 2^{k-1} \mathbb{Z}$ has $0$ as its limit. Indeed, for any $z \in \mathbb{Z}$ we have either $z = 0$ or there exists a $k$ large enough so that $z \not\in 2^k \mathbb{Z}$2011-10-08
  • 0
    @AlexeiAverchenko: The tower has the zero group as the limit, but solvable series are required to be finite. Groups for which you $\cap G^{(n)} = \{e\}$ but $G^{(k)}\neq\{e\}$ for any $k$ are sometimes called "hypoabelian groups", but they are not solvable.2011-10-08

3 Answers 3