Nilpotent not implies abelian
This article gives the statement and possibly, proof, of a non-implication relation between two group properties. That is, it states that every group satisfying the first group property (i.e., nilpotent group) need not satisfy the second group property (i.e., abelian group)
View a complete list of group property non-implications | View a complete list of group property implications
Get more facts about nilpotent group|Get more facts about abelian group
Statement
A nilpotent group need not always be abelian.
Proof
The smallest examples of nilpotent non-abelian groups are of order 8 (see groups of order 8):
- quaternion group, an eight-element group whose elements are
with the multiplication given by multiplication of quaternions.
- dihedral group of order eight, generated by an element of order four and an element of order two that conjugates the element of order four to its inverse.
Related facts
Converse
The converse is true: abelian implies nilpotent.
Reduction to prime power case for finite groups
Any group of prime power order is nilpotent, so any such group that is non-abelian furnishes an example of a nilpotent non-abelian group.
In a sense, the examples of prime power order are representative of all examples for finite groups, because of the following: By the equivalence of definitions of finite nilpotent group, a nilpotent group is the direct product of its Sylow subgroups. Thus, for a nilpotent group, if the group is an A-group (all Sylow subgroups are abelian) then it must be an abelian group. Thus, any example of a nilpotent non-abelian group ultimately relies on an example of prime power order.
Partial truth
Related specific information
Numerical comparisons of number of abelian and nilpotent groups for prime power orders
Order | Information on groups | Number of abelian groups | Number of nilpotent groups | Comment |
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() ![]() |
groups of prime power order | number of unordered integer partitions of ![]() ![]() ![]() |
roughly exponential in ![]() ![]() |
The counts are substantially different as ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() |
groups of prime-cube order | 3 | 5 | The two nilpotent non-abelian groups are dihedral group:D8 and quaternion group in case ![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() |
groups of prime-fourth order | 5 | 14 (![]() ![]() |
There are 6 groups of nilpotency class exactly two and 3 or 4 groups of nilpotency class three. |
![]() ![]() |
groups of prime-fifth order | 7 | at least 51 (exact number depends on ![]() ![]() |
There are groups of nilpotency class values 2, 3, 4 |
![]() ![]() |
groups of prime-sixth order | 11 | at least 267 (exact number depends on ![]() ![]() |
There are groups of nilpotency class values 2, 3, 4, 5 |
![]() ![]() |
groups of prime-seventh order | 15 | at least 2328 (exact number depends on ![]() ![]() |
There are groups of nilpotency class values 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 |
Numerical comparison of number of abelian and nilpotent groups for finite orders
For any finite number , we have Number of nilpotent groups equals product of number of groups of order each maximal prime power divisor. Similarly, the number of abelian groups is the product over all maximal prime power divisors of the number of unordered integer partitions of the exponent of each.
Thus, for any natural number such that there is at least one prime number
for which
divides
, there are nilpotent non-abelian groups of order
. For instance, for
, there are
abelian groups of that order, and
nilpotent groups of that order. See groups of order 144.