Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2021/paper-2/9/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2021 Paper 2 9 b Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-18
Rotations commute with one another, while reflection conjugation sends to . Thus the rotational conjugacy classes are pairs , except when the two entries coincide. For reflections, direct use of the relations givesIf is odd, multiplication by two permutes residues modulo , so all reflections are conjugate. The complete class list isTheir sizes are , then classes of size two, then one class of size , giving classes and elements in total.
If is even, the half-turn is central and forms its own singleton. Conjugation changes a reflection exponent by an even amount or negates it, so it preserves parity and reaches every exponent of that parity. The list isThere are classes; their sizes are , then pairs, then two classes of size . Geometrically the two reflection classes correspond to vertex-axis and edge-axis reflections, in either order depending on the choice of . These are the conjugacy classes of a finite dihedral group.
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