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ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/3/a/solution
Past exam of the short options course of the University of Oxford 2023 3 a Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
A projective conic in is the zero locus of a nonzero homogeneous quadratic polynomial, up to nonzero scaling of that polynomial. Under an invertible linear change of homogeneous coordinates, its symmetric matrix has rank , , or . Over , the corresponding forms are a nonsingular conic such as , two distinct lines such as , or a double line . In the last case the repeated factor records multiplicity, even though the underlying point set is one line.
A projective line is the projectivization of a two-dimensional linear subspace of , equivalently the zero locus of one nonzero linear form. For two such subspaces , the dimension formula for a sum of subspaces gives . A nonzero vector in the intersection therefore supplies a common projective point. Distinct lines have exactly one such point.
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