The origins of Coclass Theory

Abstract

In 1980, Leedham-Green and Newman introduced the invariant coclass to the theory of groups of prime-power order and they proposed five far-reaching conjectures related to it. Their work has initiated a deep and fruitful research project in group theory that is still ongoing today. We outline the main results of this celebrated article, we describe the history leading to it, and we survey some highlights of work inspired by these results.