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        Department of Mathematics,
            
        
                            
        
        
                
                    
            
        
        
                            
    
  Department of Mathematics,
            
University of California San Diego
        
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Food for Thought
Morgan Makhina
UCSD
A Visual Tour of the Small Symmetric and Alternating Groups
Abstract:
Take a look at the mighty tetrahedron and its mirror image. Explore the subgroup lattice of S4 and get a geometric perspective on why some of its subgroups are normal while others have conjugates.
See the Sylow-3 and Sylow-5 subgroups of A5, and learn how counting to 20 in Greek can help you remember how many of them there are. It's quite simple, actually - but we'll finish off with the following not-entirely-trivial question: can you see S5 by holding a dodecahedron up to a mirror?
May 31, 2023
1:00 PM
HSS 4025
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