Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2013/iii/paper-22/3/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 22 3 b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
At the tangent slope is zero. The elliptic-curve addition formula givesThe chord from to has slope , so its sum has -coordinate and -coordinate . Thus .
Reduction at the good prime seven gives . For , the right sides are respectively . There are respectively choices of . Including the point at infinity gives . Its nonzero torsion points of an elliptic curve of order two are , so it cannot be cyclic. Its two-primary component is and its three-primary component is cyclic of order three; henceIn particular its exponent is six.
The reduction of an elliptic curve is a group homomorphism defined on every -point by projectivity. Thus reduces to the identity for every rational . A finite point with integral coordinates reduces to an affine point, whose projective last coordinate is one, so it cannot reduce to the identity at infinity. Therefore every nonzero finite point has nonintegral coordinates. If , it has no affine coordinates at all. This is the reduction exponent obstruction to integral multiples.
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