On Redfield's Group Reduction Functions

Abstract

In 1927, J. H. Redfield (12), discussed some of the links between combinatorial analysis and permutation groups, including such topics as group transitivity, the enumeration of certain geometrical configurations, and the construction of various permutation isomorphs of a given group. Except for a revision of Redfield's treatment of transitivity by D. E. Littlewood (6), this 1927 paper appears to have been overlooked. However, it has recently been described (5) as a remarkable pioneering paper which appears to contain or anticipate virtually all of the enumeration results for graphs which have been discovered and developed during the last thirty years.