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Sep 4, 2020 at 17:47 comment added CA13 @eraldcoil Each subgroup is cyclic. Suppose $P_1\cap P_2\ni a\neq e$. Then $\langle a\rangle =P_1, P_2$. So the subgroups would be equal.
Jul 29, 2020 at 5:20 comment added roly Why the intersection of two subgroup must be trivial?
Apr 14, 2020 at 16:05 comment added Aryaman Jal @Geoffrey Critzer I'm not sure that can be said either. Suppose $p=2$. Then the number of subgroups of order $2$ is the same as the number of involutions on $[n]$ which is equal to $\displaystyle \sum_{i=0}^{\lfloor \frac{n}{2} \rfloor}\binom{n}{2i}(2i-1)!!$ which is nowhere close to $\binom{n}{2}$.
Nov 15, 2015 at 17:27 comment added Geoffrey Critzer Yes, Thank you Derek Holt. I agree. What I think we can say is this: The number of subgroups in S_n of order p (where p is a prime dividing n) is binomial(n,p)*(p-2)!.
Nov 14, 2015 at 22:29 comment added Derek Holt Unfortunately it is not as simple as that. For example, when $n=m=6$, in addition to elements like $(1,2,3,4,5,6)$, you also have those like $(1,2)(3,4,5)$.
Nov 14, 2015 at 21:35 comment added Geoffrey Critzer OK, Thanks. I see now that generally the number of cyclic subgroups of order m in S_n is binomial(n,m)*(m-1)!/phi(m) where phi(m) is the number of positive integers less than m that are relatively prime to m.
Nov 14, 2015 at 21:15 vote accept Geoffrey Critzer
Nov 14, 2015 at 20:14 comment added Derek Holt And it saves one click!
Nov 14, 2015 at 20:06 comment added Dietrich Burde This is one line more than the solution of "see page number $2$" (which is good, of course).
Nov 14, 2015 at 20:02 history answered Derek Holt CC BY-SA 3.0