Dihedral groups are non-abelian

https://arbital.com/p/dihedral_groups_are_non_abelian

by Patrick Stevens Jun 15 2016 updated Jun 15 2016

The group of symmetries of the triangle and all larger regular polyhedra are not abelian.


Let n3. Then the Dihedral group on n vertices, D2n, is not abelian.

Proof

The most natural dihedral group presentation is a,ban,b2,bab1=a1. In particular, ba=a1b=a2ab, so ab=ba if and only if a2 is the identity. But a is the rotation which has order n>2, so ab cannot be equal to ba.

[todo: picture with the triangle]