Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/prelims/mathematics-i/7/b/i/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Oxford 2015 Prelims Mathematics I 7 b i Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
The orbits of a group action form a partition of a set : every element lies in its own orbit of a group action, and two intersecting orbits of a group action coincide because each point can be moved back and then forward using inverse elements. By the orbit-stabilizer theorem, each orbit of a group action has cardinality dividing , so its size is or .
If every orbit of a group action had size or , their sizes would add to an even number, contrary to . Therefore there is a one-element orbit of a group action, say . Every sends into this same singleton, soThus is a fixed point of a group action. In fact the number of fixed points of a group action is odd, since all other orbits of a group action have even cardinality.
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