each of the five symmetry elements has a symmetry operation. people use a caret symbol (^) to talk about the operation rather than the symmetry element. so, ĉn is the rotation of a molecule around an axis and ê is the identity operation. a symmetry element can have more than one symmetry operation associated with it. since c1 is equivalent to e, s1 to σ and s2 to "i", all symmetry operations can be classified as either proper or improper rotations.