Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematical-methods-i-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2017/6/solution

With the Einstein summation convention, the magnetic force has components . Thus its matrix acting on velocity is
The Levi-Civita symbol changes sign on exchanging , so ; the diagonal vanishes and the matrix has zero trace. For nonzero , , exhibiting a nontrivial kernel and proving noninvertibility. If or , is the zero matrix and is again noninvertible.
Equivalently, an odd-dimensional real antisymmetric matrix has , hence zero determinant. The same antisymmetry gives , expressing that the magnetic force does no work.

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