Complete beginner to abstract algebra and the concepts are very foreign (do all newcomers to this subject feel this way?)
In any case Contemporary Abstract Algebra by Gallian tries to explain the notion of a "subgroup generated by $S$" in one paragraph. I like the book but he lists examples without going into sufficient detail for me to pick up what he is trying to say (note...I've reread this several times over a couple of days trying to pick up the concept). I don't think I need a lot of help just a sentence or two to explain to give me that "aha, " moment. The related/similar questions seem to involve proofs. I don't want that...I just want the concept explained a bit more.
In any case the book states:
For any element $a$ of a group $G$ it is useful to think of $\langle a\rangle $ as the smallest subgroup of $G$ containing $a$. This notion can be extended to any collection $S$ of elements from a group $G$ by defining $\langle S\rangle $ as the subgroup of $G$ with the property that $\langle S\rangle$ contains $S$ and if $H$ is any subgroup of $G$ containing $S$, then $H$ also contains $\langle S\rangle$. Thus, $\langle S\rangle$ is the smallest subgroup of $G$ that contains $S$. The set $\langle S\rangle$ is called the subgroup generated by $S$."
The author then goes on to list examples without any explanation:
- In $Z_{20} \langle 8,14\rangle = \{0, 2, 4, ..., 18\} = \langle 2\rangle$.
- In $Z\langle 8, 13\rangle = \mathbb{Z}$.
- In $D_{4} \langle H, V\rangle = \{H, H^2, V, HV \} = \{R_{0}, R_{180}, H, V \}$.
Thank you in advance...
-IdleMathGuy