05.01.2013 Views

Abel's theorem in problems and solutions - School of Mathematics

Abel's theorem in problems and solutions - School of Mathematics

Abel's theorem in problems and solutions - School of Mathematics

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

Groups 41<br />

Every permutation <strong>of</strong> degree can be written <strong>in</strong> the form<br />

where is the image <strong>of</strong> the element under the<br />

permutation. Recall that a permutation is a bijective mapp<strong>in</strong>g; as a consequence<br />

the elements <strong>of</strong> the second row are all dist<strong>in</strong>ct.<br />

172. Which is the number <strong>of</strong> all permutations <strong>of</strong> degree<br />

DEFINITION. The group <strong>of</strong> all permutations <strong>of</strong> degree with the usual<br />

operation <strong>of</strong> multiplication (i.e., composition) <strong>of</strong> permutations 9 is called<br />

the symmetric group <strong>of</strong> degree <strong>and</strong> is denoted by<br />

173. Prove that for group is not commutative.<br />

A permutation can <strong>in</strong>terchange some elements <strong>and</strong> fix the others.<br />

It may also happen that the permuted elements change their position<br />

cyclicly. For example, the permutation<br />

fixes the elements 2, 5 <strong>and</strong> 7, <strong>and</strong> permutes the other elements cyclicly:<br />

Permutations <strong>of</strong> this k<strong>in</strong>d are called cyclic<br />

permutations, or simply cycles. For cyclic permutations we will even use<br />

another notation. For example, the expression (1436) will denote the<br />

permutation send<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> fix<strong>in</strong>g the other<br />

elements <strong>of</strong> the set we deal with. So if our permutation has degree 7 then<br />

it co<strong>in</strong>cides with the permutation we had above considered.<br />

Permutations are not all cyclic. For example, the permutation<br />

is not cyclic, but can be represented as product <strong>of</strong> two cycles:<br />

The cycles obta<strong>in</strong>ed permute different elements. Cycles <strong>of</strong> such a k<strong>in</strong>d<br />

are said to be <strong>in</strong>dependent. It is easy to see that the product <strong>of</strong> two<br />

9 By our def<strong>in</strong>ition <strong>of</strong> product <strong>of</strong> transformations (§1.2) the multiplications <strong>of</strong> permutations<br />

are carried out from right to left. Sometimes one considers the multiplications<br />

from left to right. The groups obta<strong>in</strong>ed with the two multiplication rules are<br />

isomorphic.

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!