Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 ib Paper 3 12A Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Project from the north pole along the line through a sphere point onto the equatorial plane , identified with . Parameterizing this line givesThe inverse stereographic projection isNegating the three sphere coordinates consequently sends to , with interchanged. This proves the antipodal stereographic coordinate relation.
A nonidentity Möbius transformation has . For , its fixed points are the roots of , giving one or two distinct points. If and , there is one finite root and the fixed point infinity. If , , and , it is a translation and only infinity is fixed. The remaining case is the identity, already excluded. Thus the claim includes fixed points at infinity, not just finite solutions of the quadratic.
A nontrivial rotation of the sphere fixes exactly the two poles on its axis, which are antipodal. It therefore gives exactly two fixed stereographic points with . Here the nonzero rotation angle is understood modulo ; an angle that is a whole multiple of would be the identity.
Conversely, use a sphere rotation whose Möbius map sends the two antipodal fixed points to . The conjugate fixes both, hence equals for some . If , write ; the inverse stereographic formula shows that this rotates while leaving fixed. Conjugating back by the rotation gives a sphere rotation. If , for every finite . If , for every , in the sphere topology. Pulling these conclusions back proves the antipodal fixed-point classification of Möbius transformations: either the map is a sphere rotation or one fixed point attracts every point except the other fixed point.