Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematical-methods-i-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2021-resit/8/a/solution

Differentiation satisfies for constant scalars , so it is a linear map on suitable vector spaces of differentiable functions. An arbitrary set need not even be a vector space, and an endomorphism interpretation also requires .
For a noninvertible example, take . Then and the kernel of a linear map is the nonzero linear span of , so is not injective. The matrix in this basis is .
For an invertible example, take . In this basis, has matrix , and
Thus differentiation is not always invertible; the domain and codomain determine the answer.

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