The subjects of ordered groups and of infinite permutation groups have long en joyed a symbiotic relationship. Although the two subjects come from very different sources, they have in certain ways come together, and each has derived considerable benefit from the other. My own personal contact with this interaction began in 1961. I had done Ph. D. work on sequence convergence in totally ordered groups under the direction of Paul Conrad. In the process, I had encountered "pseudo-convergent" sequences in an ordered group G, which are like Cauchy sequences, except that the differences be tween terms of large index approach not 0 but a convex subgroup G of G. If G is normal, then such sequences are conveniently described as Cauchy sequences in the quotient ordered group GIG. If G is not normal, of course GIG has no group structure, though it is still a totally ordered set. The best that can be said is that the elements of G permute GIG in an order-preserving fashion. In independent investigations around that time, both P. Conrad and P. Cohn had showed that a group admits a total right ordering if and only if the group is a group of automor phisms of a totally ordered set. (In a right ordered group, the order is required to be preserved by all right translations, unlike a (two-sided) ordered group, where both right and left translations must preserve the order.

As a result of the work of the nineteenth-century mathematician Arthur Cayley, algebraists and geometers have extensively studied permutation of sets. In the special case that the underlying set is linearly ordered, there is a natural subgroup to study, namely the set of permutations that preserves that order. In some senses. these are universal for automorphisms of models of theories. The purpose of this book is to make a thorough, comprehensive examination of these groups of permutations. After providing the initial background Professor Glass develops the general structure theory, emphasizing throughout the geometric and intuitive aspects of the subject. He includes many applications to infinite simple groups, ordered permutation groups and lattice-ordered groups. The streamlined approach will enable the beginning graduate student to reach the frontiers of the subject smoothly and quickly. Indeed much of the material included has never been available in book form before, so this account should also be useful as a reference work for professionals.

"This book contains the proceedings of the L.M.S. Durham Symposium on Groups, Geometry and Combinatorics, July 16-26, 2001"--P. v.

This book summarizes recent developments in the study of permutation groups for beginning graduate students.

Table of contents

Configurations can be studied from a graph-theoretical viewpoint via the so-called Levi graphs and lie at the heart of graphs, groups, surfaces, and geometries, all of which are very active areas of mathematical exploration. In this self-contained textbook, algebraic graph theory is used to introduce groups; topological graph theory is used to explore surfaces; and geometric graph theory is implemented to analyze incidence geometries. After a preview of configurations in Chapter 1, a concise introduction to graph theory is presented in Chapter 2, followed by a geometric introduction to groups in Chapter 3. Maps and surfaces are combinatorially treated in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 introduces the concept of incidence structure through vertex colored graphs, and the combinatorial aspects of classical configurations are studied. Geometric aspects, some historical remarks, references, and applications of classical configurations appear in the last chapter. With over two hundred illustrations, challenging exercises at the end of each chapter, a comprehensive bibliography, and a set of open problems, Configurations from a Graphical Viewpoint is well suited for a graduate graph theory course, an advanced undergraduate seminar, or a self-contained reference for mathematicians and researchers.