Timeline for Meaning of 'alternating' group ?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 1, 2011 at 7:40 | vote | accept | Ralph | ||
| Sep 1, 2011 at 2:49 | answer | added | Timothy Chow | timeline score: 21 | |
| Sep 1, 2011 at 0:18 | comment | added | Daniel Mansfield | I thought it was because you could generate any element of this group by "alternating" pairs of elements. | |
| Sep 1, 2011 at 0:15 | comment | added | Noam D. Elkies | Confusingly, "alternating permutation" has been used to mean "zigzag permutation" or "up-down permutation", i.e. $\pi(1) < \pi(2) > \pi(3) < \pi(4) > \pi(5) < > \cdots$. Because this collides with "alternating group" I much prefer the other two terms. | |
| Aug 31, 2011 at 23:55 | comment | added | Brendan McKay | It is the group of permutations of the variables of an "alternating polynomial" which preserve the value of the function. I'm guessing that "alternating polynomial" is an older concept and so this could be the origin. But this is pure speculation. | |
| Aug 31, 2011 at 23:35 | comment | added | Henry Cohn | Continuing the tradition of people who don't know offering weird guesses (see mathoverflow.net/questions/74004), I've always thought it was because the permutations of even and odd sign alternate under transpositions. However, I have no source for this. | |
| Aug 31, 2011 at 23:29 | history | edited | Ralph | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 14 characters in body
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| Aug 31, 2011 at 23:18 | history | asked | Ralph | CC BY-SA 3.0 |