Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 6 1 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For each nonzero integer tuple , putIf its first coordinates are all zero, then and is empty. Otherwise it is a closed proper affine hyperplane. It has empty interior: from any of its points, an arbitrarily small displacement in the nonzero normal direction leaves it. Thus every is nowhere dense.
There are countably many integer tuples, and is complete. The Baire category theorem therefore makes the complement of their union dense and nonempty. Choosing any point there givesEquivalently, are linearly independent over : multiplying a rational relation by a common denominator produces just such an integer relation. This is an instance of Baire avoidance of countably many affine hyperplanes.