Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/ii/paper-4/4h/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 ii Paper 4 4H Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-14
A general feedback shift register of length over an alphabet stores , outputs , and shifts to for a fixed function . When the alphabet is a field , it is a linear-feedback shift register if is linear over , equivalently for fixed coefficients in . The binary case uses the finite field ; the examples and counterexamples below are binary.
For a genuinely nonlinear example take length three and . Its values at and are both zero, but its value at their sum is one, violating additivity. Thus this general register is not linear. It even has an invertible state update: from the old leading bit is , so the counterexample does not rely on allowing singular registers.
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