Finite groupIn abstract algebra, a finite group is a group whose underlying set is finite. Finite groups often arise when considering symmetry of mathematical or physical objects, when those objects admit just a finite number of structure-preserving transformations. Important examples of finite groups include cyclic groups and permutation groups. The study of finite groups has been an integral part of group theory since it arose in the 19th century.
Representation theory of finite groupsThe representation theory of groups is a part of mathematics which examines how groups act on given structures. Here the focus is in particular on operations of groups on vector spaces. Nevertheless, groups acting on other groups or on sets are also considered. For more details, please refer to the section on permutation representations. Other than a few marked exceptions, only finite groups will be considered in this article. We will also restrict ourselves to vector spaces over fields of characteristic zero.
Classification of finite simple groupsIn mathematics, the classification of finite simple groups is a result of group theory stating that every finite simple group is either cyclic, or alternating, or it belongs to a broad infinite class called the groups of Lie type, or else it is one of twenty-six or twenty-seven exceptions, called sporadic. The proof consists of tens of thousands of pages in several hundred journal articles written by about 100 authors, published mostly between 1955 and 2004.
Abelian groupIn mathematics, an abelian group, also called a commutative group, is a group in which the result of applying the group operation to two group elements does not depend on the order in which they are written. That is, the group operation is commutative. With addition as an operation, the integers and the real numbers form abelian groups, and the concept of an abelian group may be viewed as a generalization of these examples. Abelian groups are named after early 19th century mathematician Niels Henrik Abel.
P-groupIn mathematics, specifically group theory, given a prime number p, a p-group is a group in which the order of every element is a power of p. That is, for each element g of a p-group G, there exists a nonnegative integer n such that the product of pn copies of g, and not fewer, is equal to the identity element. The orders of different elements may be different powers of p. Abelian p-groups are also called p-primary or simply primary. A finite group is a p-group if and only if its order (the number of its elements) is a power of p.
Finitely generated groupIn algebra, a finitely generated group is a group G that has some finite generating set S so that every element of G can be written as the combination (under the group operation) of finitely many elements of S and of inverses of such elements. By definition, every finite group is finitely generated, since S can be taken to be G itself. Every infinite finitely generated group must be countable but countable groups need not be finitely generated. The additive group of rational numbers Q is an example of a countable group that is not finitely generated.
ATLAS of Finite GroupsThe ATLAS of Finite Groups, often simply known as the ATLAS, is a group theory book by John Horton Conway, Robert Turner Curtis, Simon Phillips Norton, Richard Alan Parker and Robert Arnott Wilson (with computational assistance from J. G. Thackray), published in December 1985 by Oxford University Press and reprinted with corrections in 2003 ().
Prüfer groupIn mathematics, specifically in group theory, the Prüfer p-group or the p-quasicyclic group or p∞-group, Z(p∞), for a prime number p is the unique p-group in which every element has p different p-th roots. The Prüfer p-groups are countable abelian groups that are important in the classification of infinite abelian groups: they (along with the group of rational numbers) form the smallest building blocks of all divisible groups. The groups are named after Heinz Prüfer, a German mathematician of the early 20th century.
Equivalence classIn mathematics, when the elements of some set have a notion of equivalence (formalized as an equivalence relation), then one may naturally split the set into equivalence classes. These equivalence classes are constructed so that elements and belong to the same equivalence class if, and only if, they are equivalent. Formally, given a set and an equivalence relation on the of an element in denoted by is the set of elements which are equivalent to It may be proven, from the defining properties of equivalence relations, that the equivalence classes form a partition of This partition—the set of equivalence classes—is sometimes called the quotient set or the quotient space of by and is denoted by .
Profinite groupIn mathematics, a profinite group is a topological group that is in a certain sense assembled from a system of finite groups. The idea of using a profinite group is to provide a "uniform", or "synoptic", view of an entire system of finite groups. Properties of the profinite group are generally speaking uniform properties of the system. For example, the profinite group is finitely generated (as a topological group) if and only if there exists such that every group in the system can be generated by elements.