Dear Gap Forum,

Tony Gaglione and David Joyner asked about the "collection process" for
free groups. I gather that this refers to the "commutator collection
process" as described in M.(?) Hall's text. This (algorithmic) process uses
commutator identities to express a given element of a free group in terms of
preselected "basic commutators".

Carrying out the collection process by hand is not fun, at least not after a
few minutes/hours!! A potentially useful utility.

Bill Bogley
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Department of Mathematics               bogley@math.orst.edu
Kidder 368                              tel: (503)737-5158
Oregon State University                 fax: (503)737-0517
Corvallis, OR 97331-4705                ftp.math.orst.edu/publications/bogley
USA                                     http://www.orst.edu/~bogleyw

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