University of Waterloo

PMATH 336

Group Theory and Applications

Frederick Yuan

Instructor
Stephen New

May 12, 2017

PMATH 336 - Group Theory and Applications Winter 2015

Definiton. When G is a finite group (meaning that G has finitely many elements), we
can specify the operation * by making a table which displays the values a b for all pairs
(a, b) G G. Such a table is called a Cayley table or an addition or multiplication
or composition model for G.

Example. The addition table for Z6

ab 0 1 2 3 4 5
0 0 1 2 3 4 5
1 1 2 3 4 5 0
2 2 3 4 5 0 1
3 3 4 5 0 1 2
4 4 5 0 1 2 3
5 5 0 1 2 3 4

Example. U18 = {1, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17}

ab 1 5 7 11 13 17
1 1 5 7 11 13 17
5 5 7 17 1 11 0
7 7 17 13 5 1 11
11 11 1 5 13 17 7
13 13 11 1 17 7 5
17 17 13 11 7 5 1

Definiton. For a set S. We denote the cardinality of S by S. When S is finite by |S|/

When S is finite |S| is the number of elements in S. When S is infinite we can write
S=

Definiton. Let G be a group. The order of G is its cardinality G. For a G,

we define the order of a G, denoted by |a| or by ord(a) is defined to be the smallest
positive integer n such that an = e provided that such positive integer n exists. Otherwise
the order is is no such positive integer exists.

In addition notation |a| = the smallest n Z+ : na = 0 is such n exists. otherwise.

Example. |Z| = (to be precise |Z| = 0 )