mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, the Cartan–Dieudonné theorem, named after

Élie Cartan Élie Joseph Cartan (; 9 April 1869 – 6 May 1951) was an influential French mathematician who did fundamental work in the theory of Lie groups, differential systems (coordinate-free geometric formulation of PDEs), and differential geometry. ...

and

Jean Dieudonné Jean Alexandre Eugène Dieudonné (; 1 July 1906 – 29 November 1992) was a French mathematician, notable for research in abstract algebra, algebraic geometry, and functional analysis, for close involvement with the Nicolas Bourbaki pseudonymo ...

, establishes that every

orthogonal transformation In linear algebra, an orthogonal transformation is a linear transformation ''T'' : ''V'' → ''V'' on a real inner product space ''V'', that preserves the inner product. That is, for each pair of elements of ''V'', we h ...

in an ''n''-

dimensional In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coordi ...

symmetric bilinear space can be described as the

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...

of at most ''n'' reflections. The notion of a symmetric bilinear space is a generalization of

Euclidean space Euclidean space is the fundamental space of geometry, intended to represent physical space. Originally, that is, in Euclid's Elements, Euclid's ''Elements'', it was the three-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry, but in modern mathematics ther ...

whose structure is defined by a

symmetric bilinear form In mathematics, a symmetric bilinear form on a vector space is a bilinear map from two copies of the vector space to the field of scalars such that the order of the two vectors does not affect the value of the map. In other words, it is a bilinear ...

(which need not be

positive definite In mathematics, positive definiteness is a property of any object to which a bilinear form or a sesquilinear form may be naturally associated, which is positive-definite. See, in particular: * Positive-definite bilinear form * Positive-definite f ...

, so is not necessarily an

inner product In mathematics, an inner product space (or, rarely, a Hausdorff space, Hausdorff pre-Hilbert space) is a real vector space or a complex vector space with an operation (mathematics), operation called an inner product. The inner product of two ve ...

– for instance, a

pseudo-Euclidean space In mathematics and theoretical physics, a pseudo-Euclidean space is a finite-dimensional real -space together with a non- degenerate quadratic form . Such a quadratic form can, given a suitable choice of basis , be applied to a vector , giving q(x ...

is also a symmetric bilinear space). The orthogonal transformations in the space are those

automorphisms In mathematics, an automorphism is an isomorphism from a mathematical object to itself. It is, in some sense, a symmetry of the object, and a way of mapping the object to itself while preserving all of its structure. The set of all automorphisms ...

which preserve the value of the bilinear form between every pair of vectors; in Euclidean space, this corresponds to preserving distances and

angle In Euclidean geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two Ray (geometry), rays, called the ''Side (plane geometry), sides'' of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the ''vertex (geometry), vertex'' of the angle. Angles formed by two ...

s. These orthogonal transformations form a

group A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic ide ...

under composition, called the

orthogonal group In mathematics, the orthogonal group in dimension , denoted , is the Group (mathematics), group of isometry, distance-preserving transformations of a Euclidean space of dimension that preserve a fixed point, where the group operation is given by ...

. For example, in the two-dimensional Euclidean plane, every orthogonal transformation is either a reflection across a line through the origin or a

rotation Rotation, or spin, is the circular movement of an object around a '' central axis''. A two-dimensional rotating object has only one possible central axis and can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. A three-dimensional ...

about the origin (which can be written as the composition of two reflections). Any arbitrary composition of such rotations and reflections can be rewritten as a composition of no more than 2 reflections. Similarly, in three-dimensional Euclidean space, every orthogonal transformation can be described as a single reflection, a rotation (2 reflections), or an

improper rotation In geometry, an improper rotation,. also called rotation-reflection, rotoreflection, rotary reflection,. or rotoinversion is an isometry in Euclidean space that is a combination of a rotation about an axis and a reflection in a plane perpendicul ...

(3 reflections). In four dimensions,

double rotation In mathematics, the group of rotations about a fixed point in four-dimensional Euclidean space is denoted SO(4). The name comes from the fact that it is the special orthogonal group of order 4. In this article ''rotation'' means ''rotational di ...

s are added that represent 4 reflections.

Formal statement

Let be an ''n''-dimensional,

non-degenerate In mathematics, specifically linear algebra, a degenerate bilinear form on a vector space ''V'' is a bilinear form such that the map from ''V'' to ''V''∗ (the dual space of ''V'' ) given by is not an isomorphism. An equivalent defin ...

symmetric bilinear space over a

field Field may refer to: Expanses of open ground * Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes * Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport * Battlefield * Lawn, an area of mowed grass * Meadow, a grass ...

with characteristic not equal to 2. Then, every element of the orthogonal group is a composition of at most ''n'' reflections.

References

* * * * Theorems in group theory Bilinear forms {{Abstract-algebra-stub

Formal statement

See also

References