Cart
Table of Contents
A Pictorial Approach to Group Theory. In the article “Complex Characters Made Simple” Sidney F. A. Kettle discusses how the presentation of group theory to students is made much simpler if irreducible representations are introduced as pictures (of phase patterns) rather than sets of numbers. The question then arises of how to show complex characters. Typically, these occur in two related components. An illustration of one component, as a helix, is shown on the cover; its partner is its mirror image and is of the other hand. The helices of chemical importance in this context usually have no more than one or two turns; for clarity, the one on the cover has seven. This sculpture, Tranzverzális Sík Elektron (Planar Electron, 40 cm steel on Vietnamese gray granite), is the work of the chemist Professor Béla Vízi of the University of Veszprém, Hungary. He has created a large number of such works of chemical relevance (see www.vizibela.hu).
indicates the article is freely available through sponsorship by the author or related funding agency.
More about this program.
