Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2016/iii/paper-104/6/c/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 104 6 c Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The auxiliary Higman group has no nontrivial finite quotients of a group. One can use this permitted property directly, but there is a short verification. In any finite quotient, let be the order of the image of . Since conjugation sends to its square, must be odd. If some , choose the least prime number dividing any . It is odd. Conjugation by the preceding generator givesThe multiplicative order of modulo is therefore a divisor of . It is greater than one and divides by the Fermat little theorem, so it has a prime divisor smaller than . That prime also divides , contradicting the choice of . Hence every and the quotient is trivial.
Given any finitely presented group , form , and apply part (a) to the word . This word is nontrivial by the normal form theorem for a free product, so the output contains by the embedding already proved.
To check its finite quotients, let be any group homomorphism to a finite group. The image of the copy of is trivial by the preceding property. The identifications make all trivial. Thus the equations give, in the image,Since , this forces for all generators of , including . The defining word then has trivial image, so as well. Every generator of has trivial image. ThereforeThis uses the concrete construction of part (a), not an assumption that arbitrary quotients preserve an embedding of .
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