I'm given the problem where one can perform perfect shuffles (i.e. you split the deck into halves and then interweave them) on a deck of $52$ cards (both in and out shuffles) and I am supposed to determine whether all $52!$ possible deck orderings are possible through a composition of such shuffles. I know that given only in or out shuffles you cannot do so since they are cyclic and of order $8$ and $52$ but I really have no idea how to even begin to tackle this problem of composing them. Was hoping for any hints or thoughts on as to how I should attempt this problem? Thanks!
EDIT: An out shuffle is when you interweave leaving the top card on the top while an in shuffle is when you interweave by putting the top card of the bottom half on top of the whole deck.
Not an answer, just a suggestion.
You have two permutations, and you want to find out if they generate the entire group of all permutations.
If $a$ is one permutation, and $b$ is the other, then $ab^{-1}=(1\,27)(2\,28)(3\,29)\cdots(26\,52)$. We can see that $a$ and $c=ab^{-1}$ generates the same subgroup as $a$ and $b$.
$c=ab^{-1}$ is probably easier to deal with, since its order is $2$.