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/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2002 Paper 2 8 b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Call the given matrix . Its middle coordinate decouples, immediately giving the eigenvalue with normalized eigenvector . The remaining characteristic polynomial comes from the block:For , the first row of gives ; for , the first row of gives . After vector normalization, one possible complete set isEach has unit Euclidean norm. The dot products with vanish because the other two middle components are zero, and . This explicitly verifies orthonormality, also predicted by the spectral theorem for real symmetric matrices with distinct eigenvalues. Changing any eigenvector's sign gives an equally valid normalized choice.
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