Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/iii/paper-1/2/a/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 1 2 a Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
All three generators commute, so the group is the abelian group modulo the integer relation lattice generated by and . Thus exactly whenEliminating gives , and is even. Conversely, if is even and , take and ; these are integers and reproduce all three coordinates. ThereforeOne can also see the invariant factors directly. The second relation gives . Substitution into the first gives . Put ; thenThe two presentations are equivalent by the explicit substitutions in both directions, so this is not just a quotient guess. An arbitrary input word is first converted, using commutativity, to its exponent totals . Its coordinates are , giving a terminating word problem for a group algorithm.
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