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Dihedral groups are non-abelian

Edited by Patrick Stevens last updated 15th Jun 2016
Requires: Abelian group

Let n≥3. Then the dihedral group on n vertices, D2n, is not abelian.

Proof

The most natural dihedral group presentation is ⟨a,b∣an,b2,bab−1=a−1⟩. In particular, ba=a−1b=a−2ab, so ab=ba if and only if a2 is the identity. But a is the rotation which has order n>2, so ab cannot be equal to ba.

Parents:
Dihedral group
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