Prime power order implies nilpotent
From Groupprops
This article gives the statement and possibly, proof, of an implication relation between two group properties. That is, it states that every group satisfying the first group property (i.e., group of prime power order) must also satisfy the second group property (i.e., nilpotent group)
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Contents
Statement
Verbal statement
Any group of prime power order is nilpotent.
Related facts
Similar facts for groups of prime power order
- Prime power order implies not centerless: This result is the key ingredient used to prove that any group of prime power order is nilpotent.
- Prime power order implies center is normality-large: This is a stronger version of the fact that any group of prime power order is centerless.
Related facts for possibly infinite p-groups
Breakdown for Lie rings
Facts used
Proof
We prove the statement by showing that it is possible to construct an upper central series for the group. The proof proceeds by induction on the order of the group. The base case for induction, namely the case of a group of prime order, is clear.
For the induction step, suppose the result is true for all groups whose order is . We want to show that the result is true for
. Let
be a group of order
. Then, by fact (1),
is nontrivial, and thus
has order
with
. Thus
is nilpotent, so has an upper central series, and pulling this back gives an upper central series for
.