Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/prelims/mathematics-i/7/a/ii/solution

Let the lengths in the disjoint cycle decomposition of be , with fixed points contributing length one. Disjoint cycles commute, and if and only if every cycle raised to is the identity, equivalently divides for every . Hence the order of a group element is
In particular, the identity has order one.

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