Special Train Algebras Arising in Genetics

Abstract

Ever since Mendel promulgated his famous laws, probability theory and statistics have played an important role in the study of heredity (9). Etherington introduced some concepts of modern algebra when he showed how a nonassociative algebra can be made to correspond to a given genetic system (1, 4). The fact that many of these algebras have common properties has led to their study from a purely abstract point of view (2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 12). Furthermore, the techniques of algebra give new ways of attacking problems in genetics such as that of stability.