Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2006/paper-1/1/b/solution

Write , , so and . The factors commute because both are polynomials in . Also has a matrix inverse since it is the transpose of the invertible . Thus the Cayley transform of a real skew-symmetric matrix, with its parameter replaced by , satisfies
Hence is an orthogonal matrix. Its inverse is ; this lets us distinguish the symmetric and skew-symmetric Cayley transforms below.

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