Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2002/paper-2/8/a/solution

An orthogonal matrix satisfies , while a symmetric matrix satisfies . Combining them gives . For the product with the antisymmetric matrix , the rule for the transpose of a matrix product gives
Thus is an antisymmetric matrix exactly when . The hypotheses do not force this commutativity. For a counterexample, take
Here is a symmetric matrix and an orthogonal matrix, and is an antisymmetric matrix and an orthogonal matrix, but is a nonzero symmetric matrix, so it is not an antisymmetric matrix. On the other hand, the product of two orthogonal matrices is always an orthogonal matrix:
Therefore the answers are

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