Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 13:52:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dan Hoey <Hoey@aic.nrl.navy.mil>
To: John Conway <conway@math.princeton.edu>
Subject: Re: [math-fun] non-square products of squares?
cc: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com>

John Conway <conway@math.princeton.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Dan Hoey wrote:

> > I looked at your classification of groups of order 16 and verified
> > your translation of the smaller anonymous groups I found.  In hopes of
> > identifying this group, I found its derived subgroup 2^4 .

>    This must be a typo for  2^2 ?

No.  I'm trying to describe the 48-element group with order spectrum
[1,15,32,0,...,0].  Gap claims its derived subgroup (which it defines
as the subgroup generated by the commutators) is the 16-element group
with order spectrum [1,15,0,0]--that's 2^4.  Could GAP be mistaken, or
am I just spreading confusion?

Thanks for explaining this stuff.  I'm really in the dark about
being able to describe the group I'm talking about.

Dan