Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2016/paper-2/9/c/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2016 Paper 2 9 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-18
Let be a proper subgroup. By Lagrange's theorem, divides . Since , its possibilities areThe subgroup of order one is generated by the identity and is cyclic. For either prime order or , choose other than the identity. Its order of a group element divides and is not one, so it is . Thus its powers exhaust , proving .
ThereforeThis uses the fact that a group of prime order is cyclic. It does not require the order-21 group itself to be Abelian or cyclic.
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