A new construction of free groups

Abstract

Letk be any finite or infinite cardinal andS _ω the symmetric group of denumerable infinite degree. It is shown that fori<k ifG _i is thei-th row of a matrix whose columns are allk-termed sequences of elements ofS _ω in each of which all but a finite number of terms are equal to the identity ofS _ω thenG _i 's (withG ⁻¹ _i 's defined in an obvious way and with coordinatewise multiplication amongG _i 's andG _i ⁻¹'s) generate the Free Group onk free generatorsG _i . Analogously, Free Abelian and other types of free groups are also constructed.