Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2002/paper-2/9/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2002 Paper 2 9 Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Conjugacy classes. For , its conjugacy class isEvery element belongs to its own conjugacy class, by taking . To prove uniqueness, suppose belongs to both and . ThenFor every , this makes a conjugate of as well. Hence , and reversing the argument gives the other inclusion. Two conjugacy classes that meet are therefore equal, proving that the classes partition .
Centre. An element has a singleton conjugacy class precisely when for every , equivalently for every . Thus the definition in the paper agrees with the usual centre of a group:The identity lies in . If , then for any , , so . Also implies , so . This proves it is a subgroup. Any two of its elements commute because either one commutes with every element of . Consequently .
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