Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2020/ii/paper-2/21f/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 2 21F b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
Cover the attached disc by a slightly enlarged interior and a collar of its boundary, and apply the Seifert-van Kampen theorem. The collar intersection has fundamental group generated by the boundary loop, whose image in is , while that loop becomes trivial in the disc. Van Kampen therefore quotients by the smallest normal subgroup containing :This is the general fundamental group after attaching a 2-cell.
Start with a wedge of two circles, whose fundamental group is the free groupAttach a disc along the loop represented by . The displayed quotient gives a connected two-dimensional CW complex with
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