Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
It was shown not long ago by Professor Gordan that the number of the irreducible covariants of a binary quantic of any order is finite (see his memoir “Beweis dass jede Covariante und Invariante einer binären Form eine ganze Function mit numerischen Coefficienten einer endlichen Anzahl solcher Formen ist,” Crelle, t. LXIX. (1869), Memoir dated 8 June 1868), and in particular that for a binary quintic the number of irreducible covariants (including the quintic and the invariants) is = 23, and that for a binary sextic the number is = 26. From the theory given in my “Second Memoir on Quantics,” Phil. Trans., 1856, [141], I derived the conclusion, which, as it now appears, was erroneous, that for a binary quintic the number of irreducible covariants was infinite. The theory requires, in fact, a modification, by reason that certain linear relations, which I had assumed to be independent, are really not independent, but, on the contrary, linearly connected together: the interconnexion in question does not occur in regard to the quadric, cubic, or quartic; and for these cases respectively the theory is true as it stands; for the quintic the interconnexion first presents itself in regard to the degree 8 in the coefficients and order 14 in the variables, viz. the theory gives correctly the number of covariants of any degree not exceeding 7, and also those of the degree 8 and order less than 14; but for the order 14 the theory as it stands gives a non-existent irreducible covariant (a,‥)8 (x, y)14, viz.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.