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July 23, 2025, 05:04:14 pm

Author Topic: Groups  (Read 933 times)  Share 

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kamil9876

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Groups
« on: October 07, 2009, 07:28:23 pm »
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Let be a group with only one element of order 2, say . Prove that for all
Voltaire: "There is an astonishing imagination even in the science of mathematics ... We repeat, there is far more imagination in the head of Archimedes than in that of Homer."

kamil9876

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Re: Groups
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2009, 10:36:42 pm »
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finally solved it :) Want to see if there are more general solutions/better than mine/ remarks on general theory.

After some playing around:

I noticed that:

let x be any element in G:
by closure.


Because g is the only element of order 2. has only two solutions: 1 and g.

But because, for all then , namely

First case:


(1)

While the second case is impossible since it implies:


but g has order 2 so this cannot be the case. Hence (1) is the only case.
Voltaire: "There is an astonishing imagination even in the science of mathematics ... We repeat, there is far more imagination in the head of Archimedes than in that of Homer."