Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-geometry-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2010/b/5/c/solution
Past exam of the geometry course of the University of Oxford 2010 B 5 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
Write the irreducible curve as , with homogeneous of degree . For there are no singular points. Otherwise choose a nonzero partial derivative, say , which has degree . Such a derivative exists in characteristic zero. Irreducibility and its smaller degree show that and have no common component.
At every singular point of , and the curve multiplicity of is at least two. The standard local lower bound for intersection multiplicity gives . Applying the Bézout theorem,ThereforeThis is the polar bound for singular points of a plane curve.
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