Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2015/paper-2/10/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2015 Paper 2 10 b Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-18
All six reflections square to the identity, and the rotation is the half-turn. These exhaust the nonidentity involutions: has square one only when , giving apart from the identity. Thus the order-two subgroups areA reflection cannot have order three. The rotations of order three are and , and they generate the same subgroup:All these subgroups are cyclic, because a group of prime order is cyclic; the displayed nonidentity elements supply their generators. This gives seven subgroups of order two and one of order three, consistently with involutions in an even dihedral group and the classification of subgroups of a dihedral group.
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