VISUAL GROUP THEORY

Visual Group Theory by Nathan Carter

Group theory is the branch of mathematics that studies symmetry, found in crystals, art, architecture, music, and many other contexts. Visual Group Theory assumes only a high school mathematics background and covers a typical undergraduate course in group theory from a thoroughly visual perspective. The more than 300 illustrations in Visual Group Theorybring groups, subgroups, homomorphisms, products, and quotients into clear view. Every topic and theorem is accompanied with a visual demonstration of its meaning and import, from the basics of groups and subgroups through advanced structural concepts such as semidirect products and Sylow theory. Although the book stands on its own, the free software Group Explorer makes an excellent companion. It enables the reader to interact visually with groups, including asking questions, creating subgroups, defining homomorphisms, and saving visualizations for use in other media. It is open source software available for Windows, Macintosh, and Unix systems fromhttp://groupexplorer.sourceforge.net.