Description

The theme of this unit is the theory of groups and their use in measuring symmetry with special emphasis on geometric examples. Apart from the mathematical interest of groups, they are of great and increasing importance in chemistry, geology and physics, and those aspects that have significance in such disciplines are strongly emphasised. The fundamental notion is that of a group action. Group actions are used to elucidate the structure of a group, culminating in the Sylow theorems, which connect finite groups and number theory. The applications of group actions extend to symmetries of the plane, three-space and higher dimensional spaces, rotation and spin, crystallographic groups and symmetries of regular figures in two and three dimensions.

For more info see : http://handbooks.uwa.edu.au/units/math/math3335