Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/iii/paper-1/6/iv/solution

True. Let and , using disjoint finite generating alphabets. The direct product of groups has finite presentation
The commuting relations let every word be reordered as a word in followed by a word in ; the two projections then show that no additional relations within either factor are imposed. For an input word , form its projections and by deleting all letters from the other factor. Evaluate each projection with the given word problem for a group algorithm for that factor. The product coordinates give
Both component algorithms halt, so this is a terminating algorithm. No subgroup-membership procedure or comparison between unknown presentations is required.

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