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ProofWiki defines a group isomorphism as a bijective homomorphism. In Topics in Algebra 2$\varepsilon$, Herstein defines a group isomorphism as an injective homomorphism:

Definition. A homomorphism $\phi$ from $G$ into $\bar{G}$ is said to be an isomorphism if $\phi$ is one-to-one.

Herstein does not define a homomorphism to be surjective, so the definition on ProofWiki and the definition in Topics in Algebra 2$\varepsilon$ contradict. Which definition is standard?

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    $\begingroup$ Isomorphisms are bijections, there is no question about it. Injective homomorphisms are called monomorphisms, and surjective ones are called epimorphisms. $\endgroup$
    – Dan Shved
    Mar 11, 2013 at 7:02
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    $\begingroup$ This is an extremely bizarre choice of terminology. $\endgroup$ Mar 11, 2013 at 7:13
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    $\begingroup$ @palio: I was referring to the injective homomorphism $1 \to G$. Without requiring both injectivity and surjectivity, group isomorphism is no longer symmetric so I should have been a bit more careful with my wording. I should have said that the trivial group is isomorphic to every group. $\endgroup$ Mar 11, 2013 at 7:27
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    $\begingroup$ I perfer: An isomorphism is a homomorphism that has an inverse homomorphism (this just happens to mean the same as bijective). $\endgroup$ Mar 11, 2013 at 7:31
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    $\begingroup$ Yes, Herstein's terminology is different from that in standard use today. It was first published in 1964. There has been at least one new edition but I guess he didn't change his terminology. But it remains an excellent textbook, particularly for good students. $\endgroup$
    – Derek Holt
    Mar 11, 2013 at 9:27

2 Answers 2

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Without a doubt the standard definitions are: a group homomorphism is a function $f:G\to H$ between groups, such that $f(g_1g_2)=f(g_1)f(g_2)$.

If moreover $f$ is a injective then the homomorphism is also called a monomorphism.

If $f$ is a surjective homomorphism then it is called an epimorphism.

If $f$ is bijective, then it is called an isomorphism.

It should be noted that these are not arbitrary notions and there is really very little room to deviate from the standard. The notions of isomorphism, monomorphism, and epimorphism are categorical notions. Isomorphism means being invertible, monomorphism means being left invertible, and epimorphism means being right invertible. It is very easy then to show that for groups, a group homomorphism is invertible iff it is bijective, and it is left invertible iff and it injective. It is slightly more challenging to show that it is right invertible iff it if surjective.

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  • $\begingroup$ The first edition of this book was published in 1964, so perhaps it predated the widespread use of the term monomorphism. Thanks for clearing things up for me! $\endgroup$
    – Snowball
    Mar 11, 2013 at 9:24
  • $\begingroup$ Indeed it took some time for the terminology to converge to standard. That is always the risk of reading old books. Of course, there is also merit in reading old books. Enjoy and you're welcome. $\endgroup$ Mar 11, 2013 at 9:25
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And perhaps it could be mentioned that from a universal algebra perspective a group has two other operations besides the binary one, that is the unary operation of inversion and the nullary operation $e$ giving the neutral element. A homomorphism should be defined as preserving the three operations. However we know well that if the binary operation is preserved, so are the other two. A well known example where a little extra care is necessary is when dealing with homomorphisms of rings with identity, where we have to require explicitly that the nullary operation identity is preserved.

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