Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2025/paper-1/6/b/solution

The cyclic property of the trace implies
Taking the matrix trace of the asserted equality therefore gives . For a positive integer over the complex numbers this requires . It is also sufficient: choose , or any two commuting matrices. Thus a finite-dimensional operator commutator cannot be a nonzero scalar multiple of the identity matrix.

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