The characters of a representation D of G is: X(g)=Tr(D(g))=trace of the D(g)'s Theorem: * a,b in G with a~b => X(a)=X(b) (their characters are the same) Proof: D(b)=D(g^ag)=D(g^)D(a)D(g) X(b)=Tr(D(b))=Tr(D(g^)D(a)D(g)) => Tr(D(b))=Tr(D(a)) * two equivalent representations of G have the same character Proof as above * The character of reducible representations is the sum ov the characters of the component representations X(g) = X1(g)+X2(g) * Character of e = dimension of group. * a finite group G has k inequivalent irreducible representations D1, D2,..,Dk and l conjugacy classes C1,C2,...,Cn with k=l.