Quantcast
  • Register
PhysicsOverflow is a next-generation academic platform for physicists and astronomers, including a community peer review system and a postgraduate-level discussion forum analogous to MathOverflow.

Welcome to PhysicsOverflow! PhysicsOverflow is an open platform for community peer review and graduate-level Physics discussion.

Please help promote PhysicsOverflow ads elsewhere if you like it.

News

PO is now at the Physics Department of Bielefeld University!

New printer friendly PO pages!

Migration to Bielefeld University was successful!

Please vote for this year's PhysicsOverflow ads!

Please do help out in categorising submissions. Submit a paper to PhysicsOverflow!

... see more

Tools for paper authors

Submit paper
Claim Paper Authorship

Tools for SE users

Search User
Reclaim SE Account
Request Account Merger
Nativise imported posts
Claim post (deleted users)
Import SE post

Users whose questions have been imported from Physics Stack Exchange, Theoretical Physics Stack Exchange, or any other Stack Exchange site are kindly requested to reclaim their account and not to register as a new user.

Public \(\beta\) tools

Report a bug with a feature
Request a new functionality
404 page design
Send feedback

Attributions

(propose a free ad)

Site Statistics

205 submissions , 163 unreviewed
5,054 questions , 2,207 unanswered
5,345 answers , 22,720 comments
1,470 users with positive rep
818 active unimported users
More ...

  Relationship between the quaternionic group and the quaternionic numbers?

+ 0 like - 0 dislike
587 views

The quaternionic group $\mathcal{Q}$ consists of the elements $1$, $-1$, $i$, $-i$,$j$,$-j$,$k$,$-k$ that satisfy the multiplication rules

$$i^2=j^2=k^2=-1$$

$$ ij=-ji=k$$

$$jk=-kj=i$$

$$ki=-ik=j$$

The quaternionic numbers $$a+ib+cj+dk$$ form a division algebra.

In Group Theory in a Nutshell on p61 A.Zee writes that those two structures are completely unrelated, but I almost cant swallow this.

Are the quaternionic group and the quaternionic numbers really completely unrelated?

asked Mar 7, 2017 in Chat by Dilaton (6,240 points) [ revision history ]
recategorized Mar 8, 2017 by Dilaton

I dont get it, is this some kind of trick question? The quaternion group is defined as taking the quaternion units as your group elements. Or in other words, if you allow your quaternion group elements to combine as basis elements in a vector space, you obtain quaternion numbers (you lose the original group structure though).

The quaternionic group is a finite subgroup of the multiplicative group of nonzero quaternionic numbers. That's how it has gotten its name. 

Zee (who mistakenly writes quarternionic group and numbers) doesn't claim that they are completely unrelated, just that they are two different kinds of algebraic structures.

Your answer

Please use answers only to (at least partly) answer questions. To comment, discuss, or ask for clarification, leave a comment instead.
To mask links under text, please type your text, highlight it, and click the "link" button. You can then enter your link URL.
Please consult the FAQ for as to how to format your post.
This is the answer box; if you want to write a comment instead, please use the 'add comment' button.
Live preview (may slow down editor)   Preview
Your name to display (optional):
Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.
Anti-spam verification:
If you are a human please identify the position of the character covered by the symbol $\varnothing$ in the following word:
p$\hbar$ysics$\varnothing$verflow
Then drag the red bullet below over the corresponding character of our banner. When you drop it there, the bullet changes to green (on slow internet connections after a few seconds).
Please complete the anti-spam verification




user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

Your rights
...