Virtually Cyclic Groups
A group is called virtually cyclic if it contains a cyclic subgroup of finite index (the number of cosets that the subgroup has). In other words, any element in a virtually cyclic group can be arrived at by applying a member of the cyclic subgroup to a member in a certain finite set. Every cyclic group is virtually cyclic, as is every finite group. It is known that a finitely generated discrete group with exactly two ends is virtually cyclic (for instance the product of Z/n and Z). Every abelian subgroup of a Gromov hyperbolic group is virtually cyclic.
Read more about this topic: Cyclic Group
Famous quotes containing the words virtually and/or groups:
“Let those talk of poverty and hard times who will in the towns and cities; cannot the emigrant who can pay his fare to New York or Boston pay five dollars more to get here ... and be as rich as he pleases, where land virtually costs nothing, and houses only the labor of building, and he may begin life as Adam did? If he will still remember the distinction of poor and rich, let him bespeak him a narrower house forthwith.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choicethere is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (b. 1922)