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, Ĉ 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 C is equivalent to E, S to σ and S to "i", all symmetry operations can be classified as either proper or improper rotations.