Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2015/ii/paper-3/20f/iii/solution

Use the two charts of the blowup of the affine plane at the origin. In the chart , the total transform is
so the proper transform has equation . It misses the exceptional divisor and is smooth, since its derivative with respect to is there.
In the chart , the total transform is , so the proper transform is
Its equation has partial derivative with respect to , so it is smooth even at its unique intersection with the exceptional divisor. The two chart descriptions agree on their overlap. Thus one blowup makes the cusp nonsingular, although it is tangent to the exceptional divisor there.

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