Degenerations, contractions and deformations of various algebraic structures play an important role in mathematics and physics. There are many different definitions and special cases of these notions. We try to give a general definition which unifies these notions and shows the connections among them. Here we focus on contractions of Lie algebras and algebraic groups.
There is proved that a convex maximal line in a median group , containing 0, is a direct factor of .
For a finitely generated group, we study the relations between its rank, the maximal rank of its free quotient, called co-rank (inner rank, cut number), and the maximal rank of its free abelian quotient, called the Betti number. We show that any combination of the group's rank, co-rank, and Betti number within obvious constraints is realized for some finitely presented group (for Betti number equal to rank, the group can be chosen torsion-free). In addition, we show that the Betti number is additive...