Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
The star diagram of a diagram [λ] was first obtained by Robinson (5) who denned and studied it, thus giving a unique characterization of the hook structure of [λ]. Staal (6) continued Robinson's work and obtained some important results. Recently, Littlewood (2) published a paper on the modular representations of the symmetric group in which he defined ‘congruent partitions’, ‘p-quotients’, etc., relating to the diagram [λ]. Littlewood's ideas, though superficially different from those of Robinson and Staal, are in essence equivalent to them.