Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2008/iii/paper-3/4/ii/solution

Suppose the underlying graph has a cycle through distinct vertices, and let be their unit vectors from admissibility. Adjacent vertices have , and every other pair has nonpositive inner product. Therefore
But linear independence makes the sum nonzero, whose squared norm in a Euclidean space must be positive. This contradiction proves that the underlying graph of an admissible Coxeter graph has no cycles. Double and triple lines record edge multiplicities; they are not cycles of length two. The argument also tolerates chords, which only make the bound smaller.

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