anybody want to guide me to an understandin of Galois theory based on my vague understanding of Galois' paper?
As I understand it you can motivate a group by thinking about expressing a polynomial in terms of it's roots
f(x) = x^n + a_1x^{n-1} + ... + a_n as f(x) = (x - x_1)...(x - x_n)
permuting the roots leaves the polynomial invariant.
We can attach each permutation of the roots to a "primitive element" X_1 = a_1x_1 + ... a_nx_n (so X_2 = a_1x_2 + a_2x_1 + ... + a_nx_n for example) but because this is not symmetric, like the polynomial is, we simply form a symmetric polynomial out of the…