Groups: An Axiomatic System

AS4: Groups

Colin Campbell
Engineering Mathematics Department

C.Campbell@bris.ac.uk

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Groups

Definition: Group
A group is a set G with a binary operation, ·, such that
G · G → G (closure) which has the following properties:
1 Associativity: For all a, b, c ∈ G , (a · b ) · c = a · (b · c )
2 Identity: There is an element 1 ∈ G such that for all a ∈ G ,
1·a = a·1 = a
3 Inverse: For every a ∈ G there is an b ∈ G such that
a · b = b · a = 1. (we can denote the inverse of a given
element a as a−1 )
Definition: Abelian Group
A group G with · is abelian if · is commutative, i.e. for all
a, b ∈ G , a · b = b · a.

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Groups

A hierarchy of structures
Groups are part of a hierarchy of structures. If we have a set M
and a binary operation F : M · M → M then we can call it a
Groupoid (our start of the hierarchy, it’s closed).
Semigroup if F is associative.
Monoid if F is associative, and has an identity element.
Group if F is associative, and has an identity and inverse
elements.

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Four examples

1. Truth and Lies

We consider the set G = {T, L} where T is the truth, and L is a
lie. Furthermore, we consider a semantic operator, ·, which we
define by
T·a = a (1)
L · a = ā (2)
where a ∈ G and ā is the opposite of a i.e. a can beT or L and if
a = T then ā = L, etc.
Is this a group?

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Four examples

Let’s test for Associativity

a b c (a · b ) · c a · (b · c )
T T T T T
T T L L L
T L T L L
T L L T T
L T T L L
L T L T T
L L T T T
L L L L L

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Four examples

Let’s test for Neutral element

The neutral element here is actually the truth. By definition

T·a = a (3)

and furthermore
a·T = a (4)

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Four examples

Let’s test for Inverse element

The inverse of the truth is the truth and the inverse of the lie is
the lie (!)
T·T = T (5)
L·L = T (6)

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Four examples

2: Permutations of n objects
Consider the set Gn of the ordered n-tuples, each containing the
numbers 1, . . . , n. For example

G3 = {(1, 2, 3), (2, 1, 3), (1, 3, 2), (2, 3, 1), (3, 1, 2), (3, 2, 1)} (7)

We define the operation Gn · Gn → Gn by

a·b = c (8)

such that
ci = abi . (9)
For example
(3, 2, 1) · (1, 3, 2) = (3, 1, 2) (10)
since, e.g. c1 = ab1 = a1 = 3. Is this a group?
Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups
 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Four examples

Let’s test for Associativity

Consider
a · (b · c ) = (a · b ) · c (11)
Consider the ith component

a(b ·c )i = ( a · b ) ci (12)
abci = abci (13)

Example

(1, 2, 3) · ((3, 2, 1) · (2, 1, 3)) = ((1, 2, 3) · (3, 2, 1)) · (2, 1,(14)

3)
(1, 2, 3) · (2, 3, 1) = (3, 2, 1) · (2, 1, 3) (15)
(2, 3, 1) = (2, 3, 1) (16)

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Four examples

Let’s test for Neutral element

The neutral element is e = (1, . . . , n ) (this means ei = i).
Consider the ith element of e · a

( e · a ) i = e ai = a i . (17)

Therefore, e · a = a. Furthermore

(a · e )i = aei = ai . (18)

Therefore a · e = a.

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Four examples

Let’s test for Inverse element

Consider a ∈ Gn we define the inverse element b by

bi = (j |aj = i ) (19)

Trivially
(a · b )i = abi = aj = i (20)
Therefore, a · b = e. Furthermore,

(b · a)j = baj = bi = j (21)

Therefore, b · a = e.

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Four examples

3. Modulo Arithmetic

The hours on an old-fashioned clock form the set N mod 12

The mod 12 means if a number is greater or equal than 12 we
subtract 12 until it is smaller than 12.

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Four examples

Modulo Arithmetic
We can append “(mod n)” to any statement to show that the
statement holds in modulo arithmetic.
For example
3 + 3 = 2 (mod 4) (22)
The set Zn under the operation of addition modulo n is an Abelian
group.

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Four examples

Permutation groups
In the accompanying course notes we (Section 3.7) we also give an
extensive discussion of permutation groups.

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Subgroups

Example system
We have just stated that N mod n under addition is a group.
Let us now use N mod 8 with addition as an example.
(The insights gained will be true for all groups.)
The N mod 8 group with addition lives on the set

G = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7} (23)

Note that within this set we can find a subset that with addition
mod 8 also forms a group. For instance we can quickly verify that
also

H = {0, 4} (24)
with addition mod 8 is a group.

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Subgroups

Definition: Subgroup
Given a group consisting of a set G with an operation ·. We say
that H is a subgroup of G if

H⊆G (25)

and H with · is a group.

Definition: Proper Subgroup
We say that H is a proper subgroup if additionally

H⊂G (26)

This can be denoted by H < G .

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Subgroups

Often a subgroup will depend entirely on a single element of the

group. That is, knowing that particular element will allow us to
compute any other element in the subgroup.
Example 1: Suppose that we consider the integer 3 and and look
at all multiples (both positive and negative) of 3. As a set, this is

3z = {. . . , −3, 0, 3, 6, . . .}
It is easy to see that 3Z is a subgroup of the integers. This
subgroup is completely determined by the element 3 since we can
obtain all of the other elements of the group by taking multiples of
3.

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Subgroups

Example 2: If H = {2n : n ∈ Z }, i.e. 2n such that

n ∈ {. . . − 1, 0, 1, . . .}, then H is a subgroup of the multiplicative
group of non-zero rational numbers, since if a = 2m and b = 2n
are in H then ab = 2m+n is also in H, as is ab −1 = 2m−n . H is a
subgroup of the set of non-zero rational numbers determined by
the element 2.

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Subgroups

Theorem: Let G be a group and a be any element in G . Then the

set

< a >= {ak : k ∈ Z }

is a subgroup of G . Furthermore, < a > is the smallest subgroup
of G that contains a.

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups

 Groups: An Axiomatic System

Cyclic subgroups

For a ∈ G , we call < a > the cyclic subgroup generated by

a.
If G contains some element a such that G =< a >, then G is
a cyclic group.
In this case a is a generator of G .
If a is an element of a group G , we define the order of a to
be the smallest positive integer n such that an = e, and we
write |a| = n.
If there is no such integer n, we say that the order of a is
infinite and write |a| = ∞.

Colin Campbell Engineering Mathematics Department AS4: Groups