Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2003/paper-2/9/solution

A group homomorphism preserves multiplication: . It sends the identity element to the identity and inverse elements to inverse elements. Its group kernel is . This contains and is closed under multiplication and inverse elements, so it is a subgroup. For and ,
Thus ; applying the same argument with gives equality. Hence the group kernel is a normal subgroup.
Let with . The parity of a permutation defines the desired map from :
The sign of a permutation is multiplicative, so parity adds modulo two under composition, exactly matching . Thus this is a group homomorphism; it is surjective because a transposition maps to . Its group kernel is
This is the alternating group on three objects, a normal subgroup of index two in .

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