 Rotational symmetry group of a cube

The orientation-preserving symmetries of a cube are the $3\times 3$ signed permutation matrices with determinant one. There are $3!2^2=24$ of them. Their group action on the four body diagonals identifies this group with the symmetric group $S_4$. Indeed choose diagonal directions $(1,1,1),(1,-1,-1),(-1,1,-1),(-1,-1,1)$, whose sum is zero and whose only linear relation has all coefficients equal. A rotation fixing every diagonal sends each direction to itself or its negative; the relation forces all four signs equal. All negative would give $-I$, which has determinant $-1$, so the kernel of a group homomorphism is trivial. Both groups have order 24, giving the identification. Its face permutations have cycle types $1^6$, $1^{2}4$, $1^2{2}^2$, $2^3$ and $3^2$, occurring $1,6,3,6,8$ times respectively.