James Jean said we may as well cut group theory, it is a subject with no use in physics, today group theory

is central to many parts of physics including quantum mechanics. Jeans advice was not taken. - Steven G. Krantz
Group theory is basically speaking the study of symmetry in sets. Group theory has real world applications in telecommunications, quantum mechanics, cryptography, and puzzle theory. To understand even the most basics of group theory you must first understand a few fundamentals, well start with what a set is as this is the real meat of the group, the objects themselves. A set is just a collection of objects, these objects are known as the elements of the set. Notated by curly braces {}, {3, 5, 2, 65, 1} would be the set containing the numbers 3, 5, 2, 65 and 1. There is also a lot of predefined notation for common sets, e.g. every integer has the shorthand , or every natural number, every positive number, instead of being described as {1, 2, 3, 4,} has the shorthand . If S is the set and x is an element in the set then we say x S, x belongs to S E.g. 4 {2, 7, 4, 9} but 4 {1, 8, 3, 0} 4 does not belong to the set {1, 8, 3, 0} Elephant {pig, elephant, lion} but fox {pig, elephant, lion} (sets dont have to just contain numbers). Sets can also be defined in a more complex way to get a large amount of elements without having to write out each element e.g. {x, x x mod2 =0} would be the set of all positive even integers. (X mod 2 just returns the remainder when x is divided by 2). A basic group consists of a set of elements, linked with a binary operator, which is just a fancy term for, a function of those two elements. E.g. multiplication, addition, subtraction, division are all examples of binary operations, however it could also be something more abstract like, the last digit of the product of two numbers. The binary operator is symbolized by the * symbol, so if a,b G then a*b would be the binary operation of a and b, dont worry if you dont understand itll soon all make sense. E.g. if the binary operation was addition then a*b would mean a+b, if the binary operation was then 2*4= .

For a set and binary operation to become a group they must follow four axioms. 1. Closure the result of a*b, a,b S is also in the set S 2. Associativity (a*b)*c = a*(b*c) 3. Identity if there exists an element e such that a*e=a for all a where a,e S then e is said to be the identity element

4. Inverse if there exists an element b such that a*b=e , where a,b,e S, then b is the inverse of a

X 1 -1 i -i

1 1 -1 i -i

-1 -1 1 -i i

i i -i -1 1

-i -i i 1 -1

E.g. Prove the set { 1, -1, i, -i } where i = and the binary operation is multiplication is also a group. We can construct a table to show the possible results of each operation. 1- Closure As you can see the operation is closed as every result is also contained in the set 2- Associativity It is known that multiplication is associative in the same way 3x2=2x3 3- Identity The element 1 is the identity as a*1=1*a=a for each element in the set 4- Inverse The inverse of 1, -1, i, -i are 1, -1, -i, i respectively , as they follow the rule a*b= 1 , as 1 is the inverse. As the set follows the 4 axioms it must also be a group. Groups have a number of properties, one which were interested in called order, this relates to groups in 2 ways. The order of a group G denoted by |G| is simply the number of elements in G The order of an element is the smallest number of times we have to repeat that element to get back to the identity, writing g*g*g*g*g as gn then the order of the element g is the smallest positive integer n such that gn=e, this is then denoted by |g| where g is the element in question For example if we say that the move R is an element of a group then the order of R, |R| would be 4 as the identity means do nothing and it takes 4 turns to get back to where we started. To construct a group for the Rubiks cube we have to go back to something we found out in a previous chapter, the number of possible states of the cube, if we say that the states of a Rubiks cube is a set G then this number is the order of g, |G|. But what can we use as our operation? If we think about each state as an algorithm which gets from the solved position to that state then we can see that we can combine these algorithms with the operation do one then the other or more technically called composition.

So our definition is as follows The set G is the set of all Rubiks cube states , and the operation is composition Identity- the identity element e is the solved state (Composing the solved state with any other state will result in nothing) Closure we know any of these states can be reached as they are in the same orbital, and so any two states can be composed Inverse to find an inverse of a state simply perform the algorithm in reverse, e.g. the inverse of (R U R F U2) is (U2 F R U R) Associativity If we have three states A, B and C then it makes no difference if we compose some algorithm for B*C and then apply that to A or if we apply the algorithm A*B to C

Something else we can demonstrate with group theory is the idea of permutations, I briefly mentioned earlier that this was when we just move pieces. We can now use group theory to actually define a permutation. If we imagine a flattened version of the group where every sticker which can move is labeled with a number ( we exclude the centre stickers as it was pointed out earlier these cannot move).

If we were to perform the move R on this solved cube then the sticker at position 25 would move to position 27, which would move to 32 which would move to 30 which would move to 25, this is a permutation and we can write that using something called cycle notation as (25 27 32 30). Now we know this we can see better how any state can be described as an algorithm from the solved position, as the state we reach is just some permutation. Using the example of the move R again the full permutation R creates is : R=(25 27 32 30)(26 29 31 28)(3 38 43 19)(5 36 45 21)(8 33 48 24)

We can then use this to see where any sticker ends up in some state, allowing us to compose 2 states by just seeing where a sticker ends after the first one, finding it in the second state and see where it is moved to there. e.g. U=(1 6 8 3)(4 7 5 2)(10 18 26 34)(9 17 25 33)(11 19 27 35)

So the composition RU we can see that the position 8 moves to position 33 after R and then position 33 moves to position 9 after U (as each bracket cycles round). This is just a taster of the things the Rubiks cube is able to explain in Group theory, its quite amazing that such a daunting and fundamental topic of mathematics can be explained by such a simple object, and now as I bring this book to a close I hope I have demonstrated to you that this is often the case. Mathematics is often seen as a very scary topic to look into but in fact its whole purpose is to describe and simplify so using just things we are familiar with we can often describe some of its most impressive concepts.