Let G be a finite group of order 20. How many elements of G are of order 5?
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Looking back on it, I'm not sure if you can assume |a^k| = 5. If so, could you explain why?
How do we know that there exists at least one element (a) of order 5? Basically, is zero also a possible answer to this question, depending on the group?
We know from Sylow's Theorem that n 5 ≡ 1 m o d 5 . This gives that n 5 ∈ { 1 + 5 n ∣ n ∈ N } . As ∣ G ∣ = 2 0 , we get that: n 5 > 1 ⟹ ∣ G ∣ ≥ 3 0 . Therefore n 5 = 1 . Then for the sole P ∈ S y l 5 ( G ) , we have that: ∀ g ∈ P , the order of g divides the order of P , which is 5 . There exists a single identity element of order one in P , and thus all other elements in P are of order 5 . Thus we get the answer of 4 elements existing in G of order 5 .
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An element a has order n then a k has order ∣ a k ∣ = g c d ( n , k ) n
So here ∣ a ∣ = 5 so g c d ( 5 , k ) 5 = 5 ⟹ g c d ( 5 , k ) = 1 ⟹ k = 1 , 2 , 3 , 4
There are four elements a , a 2 , a 3 , a 4 has order 5