Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2002/iii/paper-3/1/c/solution

Use . At the specialization is , already proved irreducible and separable. Because the original polynomial is monic, this proves irreducibility over and gives a transitive group on five roots.
At the specialization factors as
Neither factor has a root in , so they are irreducible; the factors are coprime and the specialization is separable. For example its derivative is and its value at one is one. The unramified reduction test gives a permutation whose cube is a transposition. The same primitive prime-degree graph argument now gives
No characteristic-zero discriminant-sign argument is being transferred to characteristic two: good specialization and the explicit cycle test are sufficient.

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