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Lagrange's theorem (group theory)


Lagrange's theorem, in the mathematics of group theory, states that for any finite group G, the order (number of elements) of every subgroup H of G divides the order of G. The theorem is named after Joseph-Louis Lagrange.

This can be shown using the concept of left cosets of H in G. The left cosets are the equivalence classes of a certain equivalence relation on G and therefore form a partition of G. Specifically, x and y in G are related if and only if there exists h in H such that x = yh. If we can show that all cosets of H have the same number of elements, then each coset of H has precisely |H| elements. We are then done since the order of H times the number of cosets is equal to the number of elements in G, thereby proving that the order of H divides the order of G. Now, if aH and bH are two left cosets of H, we can define a map f : aHbH by setting f(x) = ba−1x. This map is bijective because its inverse is given by


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