A topological proof in group theory

Abstract

The topological theory of covering spaces may be used to prove results in group theory, for instance, the Kuros-Reidemeister-Schreier theorem (1). It seems likely that such methods can be applied to prove the Freiheitsatz (4) and the identity theorem (3), and also perhaps Lyndon's conjecture, that the normal closure in a free group F of a, single element r is freely generated by conjugates of r. However, although these problems may easily be stated in topological terms, no such proof is at present known. In this paper we prove a related result.