Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/paper-2/10/i/solution

A group representation assigns each an invertible linear map on a fixed vector space, preserving multiplication:
Choosing a basis turns those maps into matrices. A faithful representation is injective, equivalently its kernel is , so distinct elements have distinct matrices.
Two group representations on spaces of the same dimension are called equivalent representations if one fixed invertible change of basis conjugates every representing matrix: for all . Choosing a different separately for each element does not establish equivalence.
The character of a representation is
The cyclic property of the trace makes it invariant under a change of basis and constant on conjugacy classes. Thus different characters at even one group element prove inequivalence.

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