The mathematical concept of a group has been crystallized and abstracted from numerous situations both within the body of mathematics and without.
The study of groups is developed from the study of particular situations in which groups appear naturally, and it is instructive that the group itself be presented as an object for study. In the first three sections of this chapter certain of the basic properties of groups are introduced. In the last section the group concept is used in the definition of rings and fields.
Generally, one’s first encounter with the concept of a vector is a geometrical one in the form of a directed line segment, that is to say, a straight line with an arrowhead. This type of vector, if it is properly defined, is a special example of the more general notion of a vector presented in this chapter. The concept of a vector put forward here is purely algebraic. The definition given for a vector is that it be a member of a set that satisfies certain algebraic rules.