The Gabriel-Roiter measure

The first Brauer-Thrall conjecture asserts that algebras of bounded representation type have finite representation type. This conjecture was solved by Roiter in 1968. The induction scheme which he used in his proof prompted Gabriel to introduce an invariant which we propose to call Gabriel-Roiter measure. This invariant is defined for any finite length module and it will be studied in detail in this paper. Whereas Roiter and Gabriel were dealing with algebras of bounded representation type only, it is the purpose of the present paper to demonstrate the relevance of the Gabriel-Roiter measure for algebras in general, in particular for those of infinite representation type.