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Convention:Conjugation
From Groupprops
This article is about a convention that is followed in this wiki. The aim is that every page on the wiki follows this convention unless explicitly stated otherwise on the page; however, in practice, this may not have been implemented
If G is a group and
, the conjugation by g is defined as the map:
This convention is compatible with the convention that a group action is on the left.
This notation is followed in a number of pages.
However, the notation xg is used to denote conjugation on the right. In other words xg = g − 1xg. Thus, we have (xg)h = xgh.
The latter notation is typically used in the theory of finite groups, when doing calculations involving conjugates and commutators. The primary advantage of this is that xgh = (xg)h, which is convenient for results.
Because of the inherent left-right symmetry in groups, the main definitions remain the same whatever convention we choose. It is important to remember the conventions only when trying to follow a notation-heavy proof.

