Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2016
In a recent paper [1], Victor Bryant shows how the number of axioms required to define a vector space can be reduced to seven (in addition to closure requirements). The main result of his article is that commutativity of addition can be deduced from the other axioms. In the present article we show how to reduce this number to six. For certain underlying fields one or more of these axioms can be deduced from the others. However, the six axioms are in general independent; we invite interested readers to show this by constructing their own counter-examples, which the editor of the Gazette will be pleased to receive.