Website owner:  James Miller

    PERMUTATIONS, PERMUTATION GROUPS, TRANSPOSITIONS, SYMMETRIC GROUP

The origins of group theory go back to the study of permutations. Permutations arise in connection with studies of various kinds of symmetries that occur in mathematics and especially in investigations of the question of whether a particular polynomial equation of the n-th degree is solvable by radicals. Permutations are closely connected with group theory and permutation groups play a big part in it.

Some definitions:

Permutation. An operation which replaces each of a set of objects by itself or another object in the set in a one-to-one manner. In essence, a permutation represents a mapping of a set of n objects onto itself. A permutation in which a is replaced by b, b is replaced by d, c is replaced by c, d is replaced by a and e is replaced by e in the set S = {a,b,c,d,e} is represented by the mapping

and is denoted by

where the bottom row gives the images of the elements in the top row.

Cyclic permutation (cycle). A permutation of the form (m₁m₂ ... m_k) is called a cyclic permutation (or cycle) of length k. By definition, (m₁m₂ ... m_k) denotes the permutation that carries m₁ into m₂, m₂ into m₃, ... , m_k-1 into m_k and m_k into m₁ and leaves all the remaining elements of the set in question unchanged.

Example. The cyclic permutation

                         (abcd)

on the set S = {a,b,c,d} corresponds to the mapping

or

Syn. Cycle.

Permutation group. A group whose elements are permutations , the product of two permutations being the permutation resulting from applying each in succession.

Syn. substitution group

Products of permutations – examples.

1) The product of the permutation p₁ = (abc), which takes a into b, b into c, and c into a, and the permutation p₂ = (bc), which takes b into c and c into b, is p₁p₂ = (abc)(bc), which takes a into c and c into a. Graphically it can be expressed as:

.

2) The product of the permutations

and

is

Graphically it corresponds to:

Symmetric group S_n on n letters. The group of all permutations on n objects. It corresponds to the set of all possible mappings of a set S of n objects onto itself.

Q. How many mappings are there in the set Q of all mappings of a set S of n objects onto itself?

A. n! It is equal to the number of permutations of n things taken n at a time. Object 1 can be mapped into any of n objects, then object 2 can be mapped into any of n-1 objects, object 3 can be mapped into any of n-2 objects, etc. for all n objects. Thus the total number of mappings is

                                    n(n-1)(n-2) ... = n!

Thus the symmetric group S_n on n letters has n! elements.

Alternating group A_n on n letters. A group consisting of all even permutations on n objects. A_n is a subgroup of S_n. It contains n!/2 elements.

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CYCLIC PERMUTATIONS

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Def. Transposition. A cyclic permutation of length 2.

Example: (23) and (56) are transpositions.

Def. Disjoint cycles. Two or more cycles which have no element in common are called (mutually) disjoint.

Decomposition of a permutation into cycles. Every permutation can be represented in the form of a product of cycles without common elements (i.e. disjoint cycles) and this representation is unique to within the order of the factors..

Note. A permutation can also be represented as a product of cycles with common elements but this representation is not unique. 

Products of cycles without common elements. The order of the factors is immaterial in the case of products of cycles that are without common elements (i.e. disjoint cycles).

Example. The cycles (23) and (145) have no common elements so

                        (23)(145) = (145)(23)

Decomposition of a permutation into a product of transpositions. Every permutation can be factored into a product of transpositions e.g. (abc) = (ab)(ac) in the sense that the permutation (abc) has the same effect as the permutation (ab) followed by the permutation (ac). This factorization is not unique but, for a specific permutation, the number of transpositions (i.e. factors) will always be either even or odd.

Def. Even and odd permutations. A permutation is even or odd according as it can be written as the product of an even or odd number of transpositions.

Parity of products of even and odd permutations. The product of two even permutations is even; the product of two odd permutations is even; the product of an even and an odd permutation is odd. Moreover, the permutation inverse to an even or odd permutation is a permutation of the same parity.

Length of a cycle and its parity. A cycle of length m can be represented as a product of m-1 transpositions. Thus a cycle (a₁a₂ ... a_m) of length m is an odd permutation if m is even and an odd permutation if m is odd.

Generating elements for S_n and A_n.

The n-1 transpositions (12),(13), ... ,(1n) for n > 1 generate the symmetric group S_n.

The n-2 cyclic permutations on three digits (123), (124), ... , (12n) generate the alternating group A_n.