# Math Help - How to decompose a permutation into a product of transpositions

1. ## How to decompose a permutation into a product of transpositions

Hi, I kind of know how to do this, but I don't know how my teacher has reached the result he gives us.

So I have to express (1 2 4 6 3) as a product of transpositions. I got (1,3)(1,6)(1,4)(1,2) or (1,2)(2,4)(4,6)(6,3). However, the answer the teacher gives says: (1,2)(3,4)(4,6)(2,3). But where does that come from?

I would really appreciate it if you could explain me the procedure he's used... Thanks!

2. ## Re: How to decompose a permutation into a product of transpositions

Hey juanma101285.

I think the best way to approach this is to apply every transposition one at a time and write down the permutation results for each transposition. Once you do that we can see if you have made a mistake, where it is, what it was, and where the mis-understanding is in that mistake.

3. ## Re: How to decompose a permutation into a product of transpositions

The short answer is: it doesn't matter. There are many ways to decompose a permutation into transpositions, such a decomposition is NOT unique.

The method I usually use gave me:

(1 2 4 6 3) = (3 6)(1 3)(1 4)(1 2) (writing the multiplication "composition-style" i.e., (1 2) gets applied first).

The method your teacher MAY have used:

any k-cycle can be viewed as a transposition times a (k-1)-cycle like so:

(a1 a2 ... ak) = (a1 a2)(a2 a3 ...ak).

Applied to (1 2 4 6 3), this gives us:

(1 2 4 6 3) = (1 2)(2 4 6 3).

We can also write a k-cycle this way:

(a1 a2 ... ak) = (a2 a3 ... ak)(a1 ak)

and so (2 4 6 3) = (4 6 3)(2 3), so:

(1 2 4 6 3) = (1 2)(4 6 3)(2 3) = (1 2)(3 4 6)(2 3) (cycles are usually written with the smallest number first).

By our first type of decomposition applied to (3 4 6), we find that: (3 4 6) = (3 4)(4 6), so we have:

(1 2 4 6 3) = (1 2)(3 4)(4 6)(2 3).

This doesn't mean YOUR decompositions are "wrong". The number and which transpositions it takes to get a k-cycle is not an invariant of the k-cycle, only its PARITY is.