Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 April 2009
The free product of two Hopfian groups (in the category of groups) need not be Hopfian. We prove, by elementary methods, that the free product of two simple Hopfian inverse semigroups is Hopfian. In particular the free product of any two Hopfian groups, in the category of inverse semigroups, is again Hopfian. In fact the same is true in the category of all semigroups.