Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Our aim in this paper is to consolidate and extend some of the notions in (1; 2; 5; 6) concerning free planes in order to facilitate the study of their collineation groups. An upper bound mn for the orders of the finite subroups of Gn will be established, where Gn is the collineation group of the free plane ƒn of rank n + 4. In the process, a result of (6) will be generalized. Indeed, mn will be shown to be the best upper bound for all n ≠ 5.
This paper contains part of the results from the author's doctoral dissertation prepared under the direction of Professor J. D. Swift at the University of California at Los Angeles.