Pin Group

In mathematics, the pin group is a certain subgroup of the Clifford algebra associated to a quadratic space. It maps 2-to-1 to the orthogonal group, just as the spin group maps 2-to-1 to the special orthogonal group.

In general the map from the Pin group to the orthogonal group is not onto or a universal covering space, but if the quadratic form is definite (and dimension is greater than 2), it is both.

The non-trivial element of the kernel is denoted −1, which should not be confused with the orthogonal transform of reflection through the origin, generally denoted −I.

Read more about Pin Group:  Definite Form, Indefinite Form, As Topological Group, Construction, Center, Name

Famous quotes containing the words pin and/or group:

    Maybe we were the blind mechanics of disaster, but you don’t pin the guilt on the scientists that easily. You might as well pin it on M motherhood.... Every man who ever worked on this thing told you what would happen. The scientists signed petition after petition, but nobody listened. There was a choice. It was build the bombs and use them, or risk that the United States and the Soviet Union and the rest of us would find some way to go on living.
    John Paxton (1911–1985)

    I can’t think of a single supposedly Black issue that hasn’t wasted the original Black target group and then spread like the measles to outlying white experience.
    June Jordan (b. 1936)