Giovanni Frattini

Giovanni Frattini was an Italian mathematician, noted for his contributions to group theory.

Biography

Frattini entered the Sapienza [University of Rome|University of Rome] in 1869, where he studied mathematics with Giuseppe Battaglini, Eugenio Beltrami, and Luigi Cremona, obtaining his Laurea in 1875.
In 1885 he published a paper where he defined a certain subgroup of a finite group. This subgroup, now known as the Frattini subgroup, is the subgroup generated by all the non-generators of the group. He showed that is nilpotent and, in so doing, developed a method of proof known today as Frattini's argument.
Besides group theory, he also studied
differential geometry and the analysis of second degree indeterminates.