Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2020/paper-1/18/c/i/solution

The original PDF requires itself to be an orthogonal skew-symmetric matrix; it does not require to be diagonal. A real two-dimensional skew-symmetric matrix has the form . The orthogonal matrix condition gives , so choose . Then is forced:
Direct multiplication verifies , and . Choosing gives the same . Replacing by a matrix of eigenvectors to make diagonal would generally fail the printed antisymmetry requirement.

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