Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/ii/paper-4/18h/a/solution

A primitive root of unity satisfies and for , equivalently it has multiplicative order . A positive characteristic of a field must be prime: if its least positive value factored as with , the two nonzero field elements and would have product zero. If this prime divides , put . In characteristic , the binomial coefficients for vanish because their integer numerators contain and their denominators do not. Thus . It follows that . A field has no nonzero nilpotent element, so , contradicting primitivity. Consequently .

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