What is a Young tableau?

Abstract

Young tableaux are classical combinatorial objects playing recurring and varied roles in representation theory, algebraic geometry and commutative algebra. This article is a short exposition on Young tableaux, written for the "WHAT IS...?" series of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society. It describes some of their properties and applications.

arXiv commentA final copy-edited version is to appear in Notices. Amer. Math. Soc