In mathematics and geometry, a space group is a symmetry group, usually for three dimensions, that divides space into discrete repeatable domains.
In three dimensions, there are 219 distinct types, or counted as 230 if chiral copies are considered distinct. Space groups are also studied in dimensions other than 3 where they are sometimes called Bieberbach groups, and are discrete cocompact groups of isometries of an oriented Euclidean space.
In crystallography, they are also called the crystallographic or Fedorov groups, and represent a description of the symmetry of the crystal. A definitive source regarding 3-dimensional space groups is the International Tables for Crystallography (Hahn (2002)).
Read more about Space Group: History, Elements of A Space Group, Notation For Space Groups, Classification Systems For Space Groups, Table of Space Groups in 3 Dimensions
Famous quotes containing the words space and/or group:
“Thus all our dignity lies in thought. Through it we must raise ourselves, and not through space or time, which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor, then, to think well: this is the mainspring of morality.”
—Blaise Pascal (16231662)
“He hung out of the window a long while looking up and down the street. The worlds second metropolis. In the brick houses and the dingy lamplight and the voices of a group of boys kidding and quarreling on the steps of a house opposite, in the regular firm tread of a policeman, he felt a marching like soldiers, like a sidewheeler going up the Hudson under the Palisades, like an election parade, through long streets towards something tall white full of colonnades and stately. Metropolis.”
—John Dos Passos (18961970)