Taking undergraduate physics courses, I had to deal with Euclidean vectors often. In classes like Calc III, the concept was also there.
I'm not sure if this is why, but I've always had a more intuitive "picture" of what a vector space was than other algebraic structures. Even though in a linear algebra course, vector spaces are as arbitrary of a structure as any other, this association with a "space of scalable directed lines" stuck. It makes the concept of "dimension" of a vector space very intuitive, along with many other things.
For rings and groups, and other structures, I have no such intuition. I've heard groups compared to all sorts of things, involving symmetries, and Christmas tree ornaments. I don't see these things. I have completed graduate courses on group theory and am currently self-studying rings, but have little intuition on these things.
In other words, if I had to explain a vector space to someone with no knowledge in mathematics, I would probably go the route of explaining the three dimensional space with scalable directed lines, a very concrete example, and could do so in plain language comfortably and intuitively. If I had to explain a group, I would really have no choice but to say "a group is a set of objects endowed with a binary operation such that…"
What is your intuitive notion of these other algebraic structures? How do you "visualize" a group?
Best Answer
You shouldn't think of a group as a thing in the same way as a vector space is a thing.
Groups are not things, groups act on things.
If $V$ is a vector space, then the collection of invertible linear transformations $V\to V$ is a group. If $X$ is a set, then the collection of all permutations of $X$ is a group. If $A$ is any object, in any category, then the automorphisms of $A$? They're a group.
Now, it turns out that many groups be visualized geometrically. For example, the collection of rotations in $\mathbb{R}^2$ can be identified with the circle. So you may from time to time be able to apply your understanding and intuition of geometry, vector spaces, etc., to the theory of groups, but at times you will be very surprised.
Note that every group is the symmetry group of something. For example, any finite group $G$ is a group of permutations of some finite set, as well as a group of matrices of some finite dimensional vector space. So it is reasonable to think of any finite group as a collection of symmetries that can be interpreted geometrically.