The first version of these notes was written for a first-year graduate algebra course. As in most such courses, the notes concentrated on abstract groups and, in particular, on finite groups. However,...The first version of these notes was written for a first-year graduate algebra course. As in most such courses, the notes concentrated on abstract groups and, in particular, on finite groups. However, it is not as abstract groups that most mathematicians encounter groups, but rather as algebraic groups, topological groups, or Lie groups, and it is not just the groups themselves that are of interest, but also their linear representations.
