English

The Cayley-Dickson doubling products

Rings and Algebras 2023-08-30 v4

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to identify all of the Cayley-Dickson doubling products. A Cayley-Dickson algebra AN+1\mathbb{A}_{N+1} of dimension 2N+12^{N+1} consists of all ordered pairs of elements of a Cayley-Dickson algebra AN\mathbb{A}_{N} of dimension 2N2^N where the product (a,b)(c,d)(a,b)(c,d) of elements of AN+1\mathbb{A}_{N+1} is defined in terms of a pair of second degree binomials (f(a,b,c,d),g(a,b,c,d))\left(f(a,b,c,d),g(a,b,c,d)\right) satisfying certain properties. The polynomial pair(f,g)(f,g) is called a `doubling product.' While A0\mathbb{A}_{0} may denote any ring, here it is taken to be the set R\mathbb{R} of real numbers. The binomials ff and gg should be devised such that A1=C\mathbb{A}_{1}=\mathbb{C} the complex numbers, A2=H\mathbb{A}_{2}=\mathbb{H} the quaternions, and A3=O\mathbb{A}_{3}=\mathbb{O} the octonions . Historically, various researchers have used some but not all of these doubling products.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1707.07318,
  title  = {The Cayley-Dickson doubling products},
  author = {John W. Bales},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.07318},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

32 candidates for alternate Cayley-Dickson doubling products are winnowed down to 8 products. Four of these products produce, at the third doubling, the octonions and four produce non-octonion but alternative algebras

R2 v1 2026-06-22T20:55:07.446Z