Specify the action!  By making a group action framework, we would also be 
providing the possibility of changing the action to something contrary to 
the assumptions of the original developers.... Yes, in fact I think this is 
one of the natural reasons for doing an explicit group action framework. 
 Even for the action of S_n on the set {1,2,3,...,n} one can twist the 
'usual' action with an automorphism \phi of S_n, so that \sigma acts on i 
by \phi(\sigma)(i).  

The 'usual' actions then become special predefined objects, like the 
special graphs, maybe summoned up automatically using the 
permutation/whatever's __call__ function if it's an idiomatic action like 
\sigma(3).

As a category, I would imagine we would have a GroupAction category and/or 
a GroupWithAction category, which would put some requirements on the group 
and its elements.

I've attached a bit of sample code, which could be used as a base to start 
a group action category.  (Currently just a class, as I need to go and read 
the category tutorials, though...)  The examples are at the bottom; 
includes products of actions, twisting by a group endomorphism, computing 
characters, orbits, checking the action definition, checking transitivity, 
and generating the Cayley graph of the action for a given generating 
set.....

On Monday, March 25, 2013 2:30:57 PM UTC+3, Volker Braun wrote:
>
> The group action category stuff would be nice, but you would run into 
> exactly the same question that Dima asked: What are you going to do if 
> there is more than one possible action. You'll have to either use some 
> heuristics (take the simpler / less nested action) or raise some exception 
> telling the user to explicitly disambiguate between them. 
>
>
>
> On Monday, March 25, 2013 8:33:57 AM UTC+1, tom d wrote:
>>
>> Hm, wouldn't this just be a direct product of the individual group 
>> actions?  It seems to me that we're expecting the permutations to act 
>> according to an 'obvious' group action.  Should we also expect 'obvious' 
>> actions of things like a dihedral group when given a 2-dimensional vector?  
>> Probably the answer is to generalize and build up a proper group actions 
>> category (with obvious methods passing to representations!).
>
>

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