Lattice theory began in the early 1890s, when Richard Dedekind wanted to know the answer to the following question: Given three subgroups EF , and G of an abelian group K, what is the largest number of distinct subgroups that can be formed using these subgroups and the operations of intersection and sum (join), as in E?FßÃE?FÑ?GßE?ÃF?GÑ and so on?