Problem solving in the mathematics classroom: the German perspective

In Germany, problem solving has important roots that date back at least to the beginning of the twentieth century. However, problem solving was not primarily an aspect of mathematics education but was particularly influenced by cognitive psychologists. Above all, the Gestalt psychology developed by researchers such as Köhler (Intelligenzprüfungen an Anthropoiden. Verlag der Königlichen Akademie des Wissens, Berlin, 1917; English translation: The mentality of apes. Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1925), Duncker (Zur Psychologie des produktiven Denkens. Springer, Berlin, 1935), Wertheimer (Productive thinking. Harper, New York, 1945), and Metzger (Schöpferische Freiheit. Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt, 1962) made extensive use of mathematical problems in order to describe their specific problem-solving theories. However, this research had hardly any influence on mathematics education—neither as a scientific discipline nor as a foundation for mathematics instruction. In the German mathematics classroom, problem solving, which is according to Halmos (in Am Math Mon 87:519–524, 1980) the “heart of mathematics,” did not attract the interest it deserved as a genuine mathematical topic. There is some evidence that this situation may change. In the past few years, nationwide standards for school mathematics have been introduced in Germany. In these standards, problem solving is specifically addressed as a process-oriented standard that should be part of the mathematics classroom through all grades. This article provides an overview on problem solving in Germany with reference to psychology, mathematics, and mathematics education. It starts with a presentation of the historical roots but gives also insights into contemporary developments and the classroom practice.     

Strong NP-hardness of scheduling problems with learning or aging effect

Proofs of strong NP-hardness of single machine and two-machine flowshop scheduling problems with learning or aging effect given in Rudek (Computers & Industrial Engineering 61:20–31, 2011; Annals of Operations Research 196(1):491–516, 2012a; International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 59:299–309, 2012b; Applied Mathematics and Computations 218:6498–6510, 2012c; Applied Mathematical Modelling 37:1523–1536, 2013) contain a common mistake that make them incomplete. We reveal the mistake and provide necessary corrections for the problems in Rudek (Computers & Industrial Engineering 61:20–31, 2011; Annals of Operations Research 196(1):491–516, 2012a; Applied Mathematical Modelling 37:1523–1536, 2013). NP-hardness of problems in Rudek (International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 59:299–309, 2012b; Applied Mathematics and Computations 218:6498–6510, 2012c) remains unknown because of another mistake which we are unable to correct.     

On the Gauss–Newton method

We provide a new semilocal convergence analysis of the Gauss–Newton method (GNM) for solving nonlinear equation in the Euclidean space. Using a combination of center-Lipschitz, Lipschitz conditions, and our new idea of recurrent functions, we provide under the same or weaker hypotheses than before (Ben-Israel, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 15:243–252, 1966; Chen and Nashed, Numer. Math. 66:235–257, 1993; Deuflhard and Heindl, SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 16:1–10, 1979; Guo, J. Comput. Math. 25:231–242, 2007; Häußler, Numer. Math. 48:119–125, 1986; Hu et al., J. Comput. Appl. Math. 219:110–122, 2008; Kantorovich and Akilov, Functional Analysis in Normed Spaces, Pergamon, Oxford, 1982), a finer convergence analysis. The results can be extended in case outer or generalized inverses are used. Numerical examples are also provided to show that our results apply, where others fail (Ben-Israel, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 15:243–252, 1966; Chen and Nashed, Numer. Math. 66:235–257, 1993; Deuflhard and Heindl, SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 16:1–10, 1979; Guo, J. Comput. Math. 25:231–242, 2007; Häußler, Numer. Math. 48:119–125, 1986; Hu et al., J. Comput. Appl. Math. 219:110–122, 2008; Kantorovich and Akilov, Functional Analysis in Normed Spaces, Pergamon, Oxford, 1982).     

Optimal Transport, Convection, Magnetic Relaxation and Generalized Boussinesq Equations

We establish a connection between optimal transport theory (see Villani in Topics in optimal transportation. Graduate studies in mathematics, vol. 58, AMS, Providence, 2003, for instance) and classical convection theory for geophysical flows (Pedlosky, in Geophysical fluid dynamics, Springer, New York, 1979). Our starting point is the model designed few years ago by Angenent, Haker, and Tannenbaum (SIAM J. Math. Anal. 35:61–97, 2003) to solve some optimal transport problems. This model can be seen as a generalization of the Darcy–Boussinesq equations, which is a degenerate version of the Navier–Stokes–Boussinesq (NSB) equations. In a unified framework, we relate different variants of the NSB equations (in particular what we call the generalized hydrostatic-Boussinesq equations) to various models involving optimal transport (and the related Monge–Ampère equation, Brenier in Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 64:375–417, 1991; Caffarelli in Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 45:1141–1151, 1992). This includes the 2D semi-geostrophic equations (Hoskins in Annual review of fluid mechanics, vol. 14, pp. 131–151, Palo Alto, 1982; Cullen et al. in SIAM J. Appl. Math. 51:20–31, 1991, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 185:341–363, 2007; Benamou and Brenier in SIAM J. Appl. Math. 58:1450–1461, 1998; Loeper in SIAM J. Math. Anal. 38:795–823, 2006) and some fully nonlinear versions of the so-called high-field limit of the Vlasov–Poisson system (Nieto et al. in Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 158:29–59, 2001) and of the Keller–Segel for Chemotaxis (Keller and Segel in J. Theor. Biol. 30:225–234, 1971; Jäger and Luckhaus in Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 329:819–824, 1992; Chalub et al. in Mon. Math. 142:123–141, 2004). Mathematically speaking, we establish some existence theorems for local smooth, global smooth or global weak solutions of the different models. We also justify that the inertia terms can be rigorously neglected under appropriate scaling assumptions in the generalized Navier–Stokes–Boussinesq equations. Finally, we show how a “stringy” generalization of the AHT model can be related to the magnetic relaxation model studied by Arnold and Moffatt to obtain stationary solutions of the Euler equations with prescribed topology (see Arnold and Khesin in Topological methods in hydrodynamics. Applied mathematical sciences, vol. 125, Springer, Berlin, 1998; Moffatt in J. Fluid Mech. 159:359–378, 1985, Topological aspects of the dynamics of fluids and plasmas. NATO adv. sci. inst. ser. E, appl. sci., vol. 218, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1992; Schonbek in Theory of the Navier–Stokes equations, Ser. adv. math. appl. sci., vol. 47, pp. 179–184, World Sci., Singapore, 1998; Vladimirov et al. in J. Fluid Mech. 390:127–150, 1999; Nishiyama in Bull. Inst. Math. Acad. Sin. (N.S.) 2:139–154, 2007).     

Classroom-based interventions in mathematics education: relevance, significance, and applicability

This special issue discusses various pedagogical innovations and myriad of significant findings. This commentary is not a synthesis of these contributions, but a summary of my own reflections on selected aspects of the nine papers comprising the special issue. Four themes subsume these reflections: (1) Gestural Communication (Alibali, Nathan, Church, Wolfgram, Kim and Knuth 2013); (2) Development of Ways of Thinking (Jahnke and Wambach 2013; Lehrer, Kobiela and Weinberg 2013; Mariotti 2013; Roberts and A. Stylianides 2013; Shilling-Traina and G. Stylianides 2013; Tabach, Hershkowitz and Dreyfus 2013); (3) Learning Mathematics through Representation (Saxe, Diakow and Gearhart 2013); and (4) Challenges in Dialogic Teaching (Ruthven and Hofmann 2013).     

On some free boundary problem for a compressible barotropic viscous fluid flow

In this paper, we prove a local in time unique existence theorem for the free boundary problem of a compressible barotropic viscous fluid flow without surface tension in the \(L_p\) in time and \(L_q\) in space framework with \(2 < p < \infty \) and \(N < q < \infty \) under the assumption that the initial domain is a uniform \(W^{2-1/q}_q\) one in \({\mathbb {R}}^{N}\, (N \ge 2\) ). After transforming a unknown time dependent domain to the initial domain by the Lagrangian transformation, we solve problem by the Banach contraction mapping principle based on the maximal \(L_p\) – \(L_q\) regularity of the generalized Stokes operator for the compressible viscous fluid flow with free boundary condition. The key issue for the linear theorem is the existence of \({\mathcal {R}}\) -bounded solution operator in a sector, which combined with Weis’s operator valued Fourier multiplier theorem implies the generation of analytic semigroup and the maximal \(L_p\) – \(L_q\) regularity theorem. The nonlinear problem we studied here was already investigated by several authors (Denisova and Solonnikov, St. Petersburg Math J 14:1–22, 2003; J Math Sci 115:2753–2765, 2003; Secchi, Commun PDE 1:185–204, 1990; Math Method Appl Sci 13:391–404, 1990; Secchi and Valli, J Reine Angew Math 341:1–31, 1983; Solonnikov and Tani, Constantin carathéodory: an international tribute, vols 1, 2, pp 1270–1303, World Scientific Publishing, Teaneck, 1991; Lecture notes in mathematics, vol 1530, Springer, Berlin, 1992; Tani, J Math Kyoto Univ 21:839–859, 1981; Zajaczkowski, SIAM J Math Anal 25:1–84, 1994) in the \(L_2\) framework and Hölder spaces, but our approach is different from them.     

On Ulm’s method for Fréchet differentiable operators

We provide new sufficient convergence conditions for the semilocal convergence of Ulm’s method (Izv. Akad. Nauk Est. SSR 16:403–411, 1967) in order to approximate a locally unique solution of an equation in a Banach space setting. We show that in some cases, our hypotheses hold true but the corresponding ones (Burmeister in Z. Angew. Math. Mech. 52:101–110, 1972; Kornstaedt in Aequ. Math. 13:21–45, 1975; Petzeltova in Comment. Math. Univ. Carol. 21:719–725, 1980; Potra and Ptǎk in Cas. Pest. Mat. 108:333–341, 1983; Ulm in Izv. Akad. Nauk Est. SSR 16:403–411, 1967) do not. We also show that under the same hypotheses and computational cost as (Burmeister in Z. Angew. Math. Mech. 52:101–110, 1972; Kornstaedt in Aequ. Math. 13:21–45, 1975; Petzeltova in Comment. Math. Univ. Carol. 21:719–725, 1980; Potra and Ptǎk in Cas. Pest. Mat. 108:333–341, 1983; Ulm in Izv. Akad. Nauk Est. SSR 16:403–411, 1967) finer error sequences can be obtained. Numerical examples are also provided further validating the results.     

An improved local convergence analysis for a two-step Steffensen-type method

We study a class of Steffensen-type algorithm for solving nonsmooth variational inclusions in Banach spaces. We provide a local convergence analysis under ω-conditioned divided difference, and the Aubin continuity property. This work on the one hand extends the results on local convergence of Steffensen’s method related to the resolution of nonlinear equations (see Amat and Busquier in Comput. Math. Appl. 49:13–22, 2005; J. Math. Anal. Appl. 324:1084–1092, 2006; Argyros in Southwest J. Pure Appl. Math. 1:23–29, 1997; Nonlinear Anal. 62:179–194, 2005; J. Math. Anal. Appl. 322:146–157, 2006; Rev. Colomb. Math. 40:65–73, 2006; Computational Theory of Iterative Methods, 2007). On the other hand our approach improves the ratio of convergence and enlarges the convergence ball under weaker hypotheses than one given in Hilout (Commun. Appl. Nonlinear Anal. 14:27–34, 2007).     

The Shapley value for shortest path games: a non-graph-based approach

The shortest path games are considered in this paper. The transportation of a good in a network has costs and benefits. The problem is to divide the profit of the transportation among the players. Fragnelli et al. (Math Methods Oper Res 52: 251–264, 2000) introduce the class of shortest path games and show it coincides with the class of monotone games. They also give a characterization of the Shapley value on this class of games. In this paper we consider further five characterizations of the Shapley value (Hart and Mas-Colell’s in Econometrica 57:589–614, 1989; Shapley’s in Contributions to the theory of games II, annals of mathematics studies, vol 28. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 307–317, 1953; Young’s in Int J Game Theory 14:65–72, 1985, Chun’s in Games Econ Behav 45:119–130, 1989; van den Brink’s in Int J Game Theory 30:309–319, 2001 axiomatizations), and conclude that all the mentioned axiomatizations are valid for the shortest path games. Fragnelli et al. (Math Methods Oper Res 52:251–264, 2000)’s axioms are based on the graph behind the problem, in this paper we do not consider graph specific axioms, we take $TU$ axioms only, that is we consider all shortest path problems and we take the viewpoint of an abstract decision maker who focuses rather on the abstract problem than on the concrete situations.     

Confucian heritage culture learner’s phenomenon: from “exploring the middle zone” to “constructing a bridge”

In the past decades, the CHC (Confucian heritage culture) learner’s phenomenon has spawned one of the most fruitful fields in educational research. Despite the impression that CHC learners are brought up in an environment not conducive to learning, their academic performances have been excelling their Western counterparts (Fan et al. in How Chinese learn mathematics: perspectives from insiders, 2004). Numerous explanations were offered to reveal the paradox (Morrison in Educ J, 2006), and there were challenges of whether there is “over-Confucianisation” in all these discussions (Chang in J Psychol Chin Soc, 2000; Wong and Wong in Asian Psychol, 2002). It has been suggested that the East and the West should come and discuss at the “middle zone” so that one can get the best from the two worlds. On the other hand, at the turn of the new millennium, discussions on mathematics curriculum reform proliferate in many places. One of the foci of the debate is the basic skills—higher-order thinking “dichotomy”. Viewing from the perspective of the process of mathematisation, teaching mathematics is more than striking a balance between the two, but to bridge basic skills to higher-order thinking competences. Such an attempt was explored in recent years and the ideas behind will be shared in this paper.     

Non-Decaying Solutions to the Navier Stokes Equations in Exterior Domains

We establish a new theorem of existence (and uniqueness) of solutions to the Navier-Stokes initial boundary value problem in exterior domains. No requirement is made on the convergence at infinity of the kinetic field and of the pressure field. These solutions are called non-decaying solutions. The first results on this topic dates back about 40 years ago see the references (Galdi and Rionero in Ann. Mat. Pures Appl. 108:361–366, 1976, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 62:295–301, 1976, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 69:37–52, 1979, Pac. J. Math. 104:77–83, 1980; Knightly in SIAM J. Math. Anal. 3:506–511, 1972). In the articles Galdi and Rionero (Ann. Mat. Pures Appl. 108:361–366, 1976, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 62:295–301, 1976, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 69:37–52, 1979, Pac. J. Math. 104:77–83, 1980) it was introduced the so called weight function method to study the uniqueness of solutions. More recently, the problem has been considered again by several authors (see Galdi et al. in J. Math. Fluid Mech. 14:633–652, 2012, Quad. Mat. 4:27–68, 1999, Nonlinear Anal. 47:4151–4156, 2001; Kato in Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 169:159–175, 2003; Kukavica and Vicol in J. Dyn. Differ. Equ. 20:719–732, 2008; Maremonti in Mat. Ves. 61:81–91, 2009, Appl. Anal. 90:125–139, 2011).     

Index sets and Scott sentences

For a computable structure \({\mathcal{A}}\) , there may not be a computable infinitary Scott sentence. When there is a computable infinitary Scott sentence \({\varphi}\) , then the complexity of the index set \({I(\mathcal{A})}\) is bounded by that of \({\varphi}\) . There are results (Ash and Knight in Computable structures and the hyperarithmetical hierarchy. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2000; Calvert et al. in Algeb Log 45:306–315, 2006; Carson et al. in Trans Am Math Soc 364:5715–5728, 2012; McCoy and Wallbaum in Trans Am Math Soc 364:5729–5734, 2012; Knight and Saraph in Scott sentences for certain groups, pre-print) giving “optimal” Scott sentences for structures of various familiar kinds. These results have been driven by the thesis that the complexity of the index set should match that of an optimal Scott sentence (Ash and Knight in Computable structures and the hyperarithmetical hierarchy. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2000; Calvert et al. in Algeb Log 45:306–315, 2006; Carson et al. in Trans Am Math Soc 364:5715–5728, 2012; McCoy and Wallbaum in Trans Am Math Soc 364:5729–5734, 2012). In this note, it is shown that the thesis does not always hold. For a certain subgroup of \({\mathbb{Q}}\) , there is no computable d- \({\Sigma_2}\) Scott sentence, even though (as shown in Ash and Knight in Scott sentences for certain groups, pre-print) the index set is d- \({\Sigma^0_2}\) .     

Counterexamples to a triality theorem for quadratic-exponential minimization problems

The main goal of this note is to give a counterexample to the Triality Theorem in Gao and Ruan (Math Methods Oper Res 67:479–491, 2008). This is done first by considering a more general optimization problem with the aim to encompass several examples from Gao and Ruan (Math Methods Oper Res 67:479–491, 2008) and other papers by Gao and his collaborators (see f.i. Gao Duality principles in nonconvex systems. Theory, methods and applications. Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2000; Gao and Sherali Advances in applied mathematics and global optimization. Springer, Berlin, 2009). We perform a thorough analysis of the general optimization problem in terms of local extrema while presenting several counterexamples.     

More about λ-support iterations of (<λ)-complete forcing notions

This article continues Ros?anowski and Shelah (Int J Math Math Sci 28:63–82, 2001; Quaderni di Matematica 17:195–239, 2006; Israel J Math 159:109–174, 2007; 2011; Notre Dame J Formal Logic 52:113–147, 2011) and we introduce here a new property of (<λ)-strategically complete forcing notions which implies that their λ-support iterations do not collapse λ ⁺ (for a strongly inaccessible cardinal λ).     

Constructive finite free resolutions

Northcott’s book Finite Free Resolutions (1976), as well as the paper (J. Reine Angew. Math. 262/263:205–219, 1973), present some key results of Buchsbaum and Eisenbud (J. Algebra 25:259–268, 1973; Adv. Math. 12: 84–139, 1974) both in a simplified way and without Noetherian hypotheses, using the notion of latent nonzero divisor introduced by Hochster. The goal of this paper is to simplify further the proofs of these results, which become now elementary in a logical sense (no use of prime ideals, or minimal prime ideals) and, we hope, more perspicuous. Some formulations are new and more general than in the references (J. Algebra 25:259–268, 1973; Adv. Math. 12: 84–139, 1974; Finite Free Resolutions 1976) (Theorem 7.2, Lemma 8.2 and Corollary 8.5).     

Right-convergence of sparse random graphs

The paper is devoted to the problem of establishing right-convergence of sparse random graphs. This concerns the convergence of the logarithm of number of homomorphisms from graphs or hyper-graphs \(\mathbb{G }_N, N\ge 1\) to some target graph \(W\) . The theory of dense graph convergence, including random dense graphs, is now well understood (Borgs et al. in Ann Math 176:151–219, 2012; Borgs et al. in Adv Math 219:1801–1851, 2008; Chatterjee and Varadhan in Eur J Comb 32:1000–1017, 2011; Lovász and Szegedy in J Comb Theory Ser B 96:933–957, 2006), but its counterpart for sparse random graphs presents some fundamental difficulties. Phrased in the statistical physics terminology, the issue is the existence of the limits of appropriately normalized log-partition functions, also known as free energy limits, for the Gibbs distribution associated with \(W\) . In this paper we prove that the sequence of sparse Erdös-Rényi graphs is right-converging when the tensor product associated with the target graph \(W\) satisfies a certain convexity property. We treat the case of discrete and continuous target graphs \(W\) . The latter case allows us to prove a special case of Talagrand’s recent conjecture [more accurately stated as level III Research Problem 6.7.2 in his recent book (Talagrand in Mean Field Models for Spin Glasses: Volume I: Basic examples. Springer, Berlin, 2010)], concerning the existence of the limit of the measure of a set obtained from \(\mathbb{R }^N\) by intersecting it with linearly in \(N\) many subsets, generated according to some common probability law. Our proof is based on the interpolation technique, introduced first by Guerra and Toninelli (Commun Math Phys 230:71–79, 2002) and developed further in (Abbe and Montanari in On the concentration of the number of solutions of random satisfiability formulas, 2013; Bayati et al. in Ann Probab Conference version in Proceedings of 42nd Ann. Symposium on the Theory of Computing (STOC), 2010; Contucci et al. in Antiferromagnetic Potts model on the Erdös-Rényi random graph, 2011; Franz and Leone in J Stat Phys 111(3/4):535–564, 2003; Franz et al. in J Phys A Math Gen 36:10967–10985, 2003; Montanari in IEEE Trans Inf Theory 51(9):3221–3246, 2005; Panchenko and Talagrand in Probab Theory Relat Fields 130:312–336, 2004). Specifically, Bayati et al. (Ann Probab Conference version in Proceedings of 42nd Ann. Symposium on the Theory of Computing (STOC), 2010) establishes the right-convergence property for Erdös-Rényi graphs for some special cases of \(W\) . In this paper most of the results in Bayati et al. (Ann Probab Conference version in Proceedings of 42nd Ann. Symposium on the Theory of Computing (STOC), 2010) follow as a special case of our main theorem.     

Concepts of efficiency for uncertain multi-objective optimization problems based on set order relations

In this paper we present new concepts of efficiency for uncertain multi-objective optimization problems. We analyze the connection between the concept of minmax robust efficiency presented by Ehrgott et al. (Eur J Oper Res, 2014, doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2014.03.013) and the upper set less order relation \(\preceq _s^u\) introduced by Kuroiwa (1998, 1999). From this connection we derive new concepts of efficiency for uncertain multi-objective optimization problems by replacing the set ordering with other set orderings. Those are namely the lower set less ordering (see Kuroiwa 1998, 1999), the set less ordering (see Nishnianidze in Soobshch Akad Nauk Gruzin SSR 114(3):489–491, 1984; Young in Math Ann 104(1):260–290, 1931, doi:10.1007/BF01457934; Eichfelder and Jahn in Vector Optimization. Springer, Berlin, 2012), the certainly less ordering (see Eichfelder and Jahn in Vector Optimization. Springer, Berlin, 2012), and the alternative set less ordering (see Ide et al. in Fixed Point Theory Appl, 2014, doi:10.1186/1687-1812-2014-83; Köbis 2014). We analyze the resulting concepts of efficiency and present numerical results on the occurrence of the various concepts. We conclude the paper with a short comparison between the concepts, and an outlook to further work.     

Efficient model for interval goal programming with arbitrary penalty function

Penalty function is a key factor in interval goal programming (IGP), especially for decision makers weighing resources vis-à-vis goals. Many approaches (Chang et al. J Oper Res Soc 57:469–473, 2006; Chang and Lin Eur J Oper Res 199, 9–20, 2009; Jones et al. Omega 23, 41–48, 1995; Romero Eur J Oper Res 153, 675–686, 2004; Vitoriano and Romero J Oper Res Soc 50, 1280–1283, 1999)have been proposed for treating several types of penalty functions in the past several decades. The recent approach of Chang and Lin (Eur J Oper Res 199, 9–20, 2009) considers the S-shaped penalty function. Although there are many approaches cited in literature, all are complicated and inefficient. The current paper proposes a novel and concise uniform model to treat any arbitrary penalty function in IGP. The efficiency and usefulness of the proposed model are demonstrated in several numeric examples.     

Foulkes characters, Eulerian idempotents, and an amazing matrix

John Holte (Am. Math. Mon. 104:138?C149, 1997) introduced a family of ??amazing matrices?? which give the transition probabilities of ??carries?? when adding a list of numbers. It was subsequently shown that these same matrices arise in the combinatorics of the Veronese embedding of commutative algebra (Brenti and Welker, Adv. Appl. Math. 42:545?C556, 2009; Diaconis and Fulman, Am. Math. Mon. 116:788?C803, 2009; Adv. Appl. Math. 43:176?C196, 2009) and in the analysis of riffle shuffling (Diaconis and Fulman, Am. Math. Mon. 116:788?C803, 2009; Adv. Appl. Math. 43:176?C196, 2009). We find that the left eigenvectors of these matrices form the Foulkes character table of the symmetric group and the right eigenvectors are the Eulerian idempotents introduced by Loday (Cyclic Homology, 1992) in work on Hochschild homology. The connections give new closed formulae for Foulkes characters and allow explicit computation of natural correlation functions in the original carries problem.     

3-Nets realizing a group in a projective plane

In a projective plane $\mathit{PG}(2,\mathbb{K})$ defined over an algebraically closed field $\mathbb{K}$ of characteristic 0, we give a complete classification of 3-nets realizing a finite group. An infinite family, due to Yuzvinsky (Compos. Math. 140:1614–1624, 2004), arises from plane cubics and comprises 3-nets realizing cyclic and direct products of two cyclic groups. Another known infinite family, due to Pereira and Yuzvinsky (Adv. Math. 219:672–688, 2008), comprises 3-nets realizing dihedral groups. We prove that there is no further infinite family. Urzúa’s 3-nets (Adv. Geom. 10:287–310, 2010) realizing the quaternion group of order 8 are the unique sporadic examples. If p is larger than the order of the group, the above classification holds in characteristic p>0 apart from three possible exceptions $\rm{Alt}_{4}$ , $\rm{Sym}_{4}$ , and $\rm{Alt}_{5}$ . Motivation for the study of finite 3-nets in the complex plane comes from the study of complex line arrangements and from resonance theory; see (Falk and Yuzvinsky in Compos. Math. 143:1069–1088, 2007; Miguel and Buzunáriz in Graphs Comb. 25:469–488, 2009; Pereira and Yuzvinsky in Adv. Math. 219:672–688, 2008; Yuzvinsky in Compos. Math. 140:1614–1624, 2004; Yuzvinsky in Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 137:1641–1648, 2009).