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Archive for July, 2013

I’ve added a new page of reading recommendations, mostly for undergraduates, to the top. The emphasis is intended to be on well-written and accessible books. Comments and suggestions welcome.

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The goal of this post is to collect a list of applications of the following theorem, which is perhaps the simplest example of a fixed point theorem.

Theorem: Let G be a finite p-group acting on a finite set X. Let X^G denote the subset of X consisting of those elements fixed by G. Then |X^G| \equiv |X| \bmod p; in particular, if p \nmid |X| then G has a fixed point.

Although this theorem is an elementary exercise, it has a surprising number of fundamental corollaries.

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