Finite groups generated by reflections, and their subgroups generated by reflections

Abstract

In connection with his work on singularities of surfaces, Du Val asked me to enumerate certain subgroups in the symmetry groups of the “pure Archimedean” polytopes n 21 ( n < 5), namely those subgroups which are generated by reflections. For the sake of completeness, I have enumerated such subgroups of all the discrete groups generated by reflections (including the symmetry groups of the regular polytopes). The work involved being somewhat intricate, several slips would have been overlooked but for the information that Du Val was able to supply from the (apparently remote) theory of surfaces.