Cayley's Table

Although Evariste Galois laid open the route to Group Theory his paper was basically about the theory of algebraic equations. The first paper on Group Theory ( with a reference to Galois, of course ) was written by Arthur Cayley and published in the Philosophical Magazine, vol. VII. (1854), pp.40-47 and included in the Collected Papers of Cayley Vol. II. The article is called "On the theory of groups, as depending on the symbolic equation $\theta^n=1.$ If you have studied the M208 GTA books on Group Theory the paper is very accessible. My suggestion is that you read it. If you do you will certainly understand why group tables ( Cayley Tables ) are named after Cayley.

( Although we can learn all the required mathematics for B31 straight from the OU books I still want to know how the guys who created all that miraculous stuff originally wrote it down. Besides that there will come a day that we have to read original papers anyway. )