Group (mathematics)

Group-like structures
	Totality	Associativity	Identity	Invertibility	Commutativity
Semicategory	Unneeded	Required	Unneeded	Unneeded	Unneeded
Category	Unneeded	Required	Required	Unneeded	Unneeded
Groupoid	Unneeded	Required	Required	Required	Unneeded
Magma	Required	Unneeded	Unneeded	Unneeded	Unneeded
Quasigroup	Required	Unneeded	Unneeded	Required	Unneeded
Loop	Required	Unneeded	Required	Required	Unneeded
Semigroup	Required	Required	Unneeded	Unneeded	Unneeded
Monoid	Required	Required	Required	Unneeded	Unneeded
Group	Required	Required	Required	Required	Unneeded
Abelian group	Required	Required	Required	Required	Required
^α Closure, which is used in many sources, is an equivalent axiom to totality, though defined differently.

In mathematics, a group is an algebraic structure consisting of a set of elements equipped with an operation that combines any two elements to form a third element. The operation satisfies four conditions called the group axioms, namely closure, associativity, identity and invertibility. One of the most familiar examples of a group is the set of integers together with the addition operation, but the abstract formalization of the group axioms, detached as it is from the concrete nature of any particular group and its operation, applies much more widely. It allows entities with highly diverse mathematical origins in abstract algebra and beyond to be handled in a flexible way while retaining their essential structural aspects. The ubiquity of groups in numerous areas within and outside mathematics makes them a central organizing principle of contemporary mathematics.

Groups share a fundamental kinship with the notion of symmetry. For example, a symmetry group encodes symmetry features of a geometrical object: the group consists of the set of transformations that leave the object unchanged and the operation of combining two such transformations by performing one after the other. Lie groups are the symmetry groups used in the Standard Model of particle physics; Poincaré groups, which are also Lie groups, can express the physical symmetry underlying special relativity; and point groups are used to help understand symmetry phenomena in molecular chemistry.

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