FINITE SYMMETRY

GROUPS
The Rotational Symmetries of the
Square
Group
The symmetry group of the triangle
The Cyclic Groups
The Dihedral groups

The Rotational Symmetries of the

Square
Take a square and mark its right top hand
corner. Stick a pin in the centre and rotate
through 900 clockwise about the centre.
We will call this rotation R90.
Write the symbol for a clockwise rotation
through 180, 270 and 0 degrees.

 We have discussed last week that

isometries can be combined. So the
product of R90 and R180 would be R90
followed by R180 , which is the same as
R270. In notation:
R90 o R180 = R270.
Try exercise 4.5 page 91 in your electronic
book now.

 followed by written as o is called binary

operation, i.e. a rule or method for
combining objects two at a time.
Other examples of binary operations for
numbers are addition, subtraction,
multiplication and division.
An example of a unary operation (a rule
for operating on objects one at a time) is
square root operation or square operation
or cube operations, etc.
Try exercise 4.6 on page 92 in your
electronic book.

Group
Group theory is that branch of
mathematics concerned with the study of
groups.
These are sets with a rule, or operation.
The operation in a group must satisfy
closure and have three additional
properties:

 1) The operation must have the

property of associativity.
2) There must be an identity
element.
3) Every element must have a
corresponding inverse element.

(a) Closure: Closed under an

operation
Look at the set {R0, R90, R180, R270}. In exercise
4.6 we see that every entry in the table is one of
the elements R0, R90, R180, R270. Hence, since all
the results are within the set {R0, R90, R180, R270},
we say that the set {R0, R90, R180, R270} is closed
under the operation o.
If however if we have a set {R0, R90} and we do
R90 o R90.
R90 o R90 = R 180

 R180 is not in the set {R0, R90} nor is it

equivalent to R0 o R90 and hence set
{R0, R90} is not closed under the operation
o.
Another example: Set of natural numbers
closed under addition but not subtraction
because 3-6 = -3 and natural numbers are
all positive integers.

(b) Associativity
Addition is associative for the set of natural
numbers. The brackets can be removed when
adding 2 or more natural numbers.
Example: (2+3) +1 = 5+1 = 2+(3+1) = 2 +4 = 6
the same answer. So brackets are unnecessary.
Subtraction is not associative.
Example: 7-(5-2) = 7-3=4 but (7-5) -2 = 2-2 = 0.
Brackets are necessary to obtain the answer we
desire.

 To check for associativity we will check

using a combination of 3 rotations from the
set {R0, R90, R180, R270}.
Example: (R180 o R90)o R270 = R270 o R270 =
R180
R180 o (R90o R270) = R180 o R0 = R180 which
is the same answer.
Try another combination of 3 rotations
yourself.

(c) The identity element

R0 is the identity element. For addition 0 is
the identity. Subtraction does not have an
identity. For multiplication, 1 is the identity.
The identity element does not change the
object.

(d) Inverses
For every integer under the addition
operation, there is an inverse (but not for
every natural number).
Example: 2+(-2) = 0 and (-2 ) + 2 = 0. For
the inverse, the object operation and its
inverse produce the identity.

Inverses
Rotation of 90 degrees has an inverse
rotation of 270 degrees which produces
the identity rotation of 0 degrees:
R90 o R270 = R0 . R0 is the identity. The
inverse of R90 is
R270 and vice versa.
. All the elements of the set {R0, R90, R180,
R270} have inverses.

A GROUP
A group is a set G , together with an
operation o such that
a) G is closed under the operation o
i.e. for every A and B in G , A B is also
in G.
b) The operation is associative i.e.
(A B) C = A (B C) for every A , B
and C in G .

The symmetry group of the

triangle
Draw an equilateral triangle and mark one
vertex and shade the back of the triangle a
different colour from the front. It has 3
rotational symmetries- rotations through 0,
120 and 240 degrees (assume all are
clockwise) that is R0, R120, R240.
Do exercise 4.8.
An equilateral triangle has 6 symmetries
3 rotational and 3 reflections. Link

 MA : reflection in the vertical mirror

through point A, MB and MC like wise are
reflections in the line through the
respective points.
Now rotate and reflect and obtain 6
different positions of the triangle try it out
on your triangle and draw a sketch to keep
track of the isometry that resulted in the
position obtained.
Then combine your isometries and
complete Exercise 4.10 on page 91 in
Susie Groves Electronic book.

The Cyclic Groups

Take the equilateral triangle and rotate it at
its centre through 1200. It has rotational
symmetry for rotation through 120 0. If we
did a rotation of 1200 followed by another
rotation of 1200 then we have a rotation of
2400 which is also an angle within the set
of rotations that illustrate symmetry for an
equilateral triangle ({R0, R120, R240}).

 Rotation of 1200 followed by another

rotation of 1200 can be written as a
product as follows:
R120 o R120 = (R120)2 = R240.
Likewise, (R120)3 = R360 = R0.
If we tried to continue we would just go in
circles since we would get
(R120)4 = R120
(R120)5 = R240
(R120)6 = R0

 The whole group ({R0, R120, R240}) can be

generated by a single element (sometimes
called the generator), we call the group a
cyclic group.
In this case, the rotational symmetries
form a cyclic subgroup of the full group of
symmetries. The group consists of the set
{R0, R120, R240},which contains 3 elements.
Hence, this group has order 3. We call this
group the cyclic group of order 3 and we
write it as C3.

 Rotational symmetries of any regular

polygon with n sides form cyclic group, Cn,
of order n. Example the regular pentagon
forms the group C5. Can you list the
elements of rotational symmetry for a
pentagon?
Also, a regular polygon with n sides will
have n lines of symmetry (and hence n
reflections).

The Dihedral group

The full symmetry group of a regular
polygon with n sides consists of 2n
elements n rotations and n reflections.
These groups are known as dihedral
groups, Dn.
Try and complete the following table.
The only finite symmetry groups in the
plane are the cyclic groups Cn and the
dihedral groups Dn.