Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 ia Paper 3 7E Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-07
Use the standard implicit assumption that is prime, so is a finite field. The matrices in question form , the general linear group over a finite field. Products stay in the set because determinants multiply, the identity has determinant one, andhas entries in the finite field and nonzero determinant. Together with associativity this verifies the group axioms. The multiplication of matrices with column vectors is a group action because and .
Let be the order- cyclic subgroup. By the orbit-stabilizer theorem, its group orbits on have size either one or . If is the number of fixed vectors, counting all vectors gives . Since the zero vector is fixed, and hence . There is a nonzero fixed vector .
Extend to a basis . In this basis has matrix . From we get ; in the prime finite field, , so . Since has order , it is not the identity, and . Replace by . Then , and in the new basisThus all the order-p matrices in GL2 over the prime field form one conjugacy class. This proof also works at . Primality is essential to the first assertion: for modulus four, has nonzero determinant but no inverse, so the set defined using merely nonzero determinants would not be a group.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 12 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Use the positive Laplace-Beltrami operator, . A flat torus is the quotient , where is a full-rank Euclidean lattice and the metric descends from the Euclidean metric. Its dual lattice isIf is the covolume of , the functions descend to the torus. Direct differentiation gives the spectrum of a flat torus:The multiset includes one entry for each dual vector. In particular zero has multiplicity one. Writing identifies the dual vectors with , . Standard Fourier series on the unit cube then prove that these functions are an orthonormal basis of on the torus. If , its Fourier coefficients satisfy . Thus every eigenfunction is a linear combination of the indicated shell of frequencies, with no additional eigenvalues. Compactness gives the discrete self-adjoint realization, whose eigenfunctions are smooth. For real functions the two characters at become cosine and sine, giving the same real multiplicities. The opposite Laplacian sign would negate all displayed eigenvalues without changing the rigidity conclusion.
To prove two-dimensional spectral rigidity, let and recover its Gram matrix from its vector-length multiset. Let be the shortest nonzero length and choose with . This vector is primitive: a proper integer multiple would have a shorter lattice vector. Hence . From the spectral multiset subtract exactly two occurrences of each length , . The remaining multiset consists precisely of the vectors not on this line, including correct multiplicities at coincident lengths. Its least length is the length of a shortest vector independent of .
The pair is a basis of . Otherwise take a lattice point in a nonzero coset of and reduce its two coefficients into . The resulting nonzero lattice vector is not on , by primitivity of . Butwith strict inequality: when both coefficients are nonzero the triangle inequality is strict for independent vectors, and when one vanishes its length is at most . This contradicts the definition of . Subtract an integer multiple of from and, if necessary, change its sign to arrange ; minimality of makes this reduction possible without decreasing its length.
The covolume of is also spectral. The count of lattice vectors with length at most obeysFor example, translate a bounded fundamental parallelogram of diameter bound : the union of tiles with centres in contains and lies inside . Comparing their areas proves the leading coefficient. The spectrum supplies this count. Since is a lattice basis, its parallelogram area satisfies . ThereforeAll three quantities are determined by the spectrum. Equal Gram matrices give an orthogonal map between the dual lattices; taking duals gives an orthogonal map between the original lattices, descending to a Riemannian isometry of the tori. Isospectral flat two-tori are isometric. This is the two-dimensional lattice reconstruction from vector lengths; it uses lengths with multiplicities, not merely the set of distinct lengths.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 4 4 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
We use Zorn's lemma, and no basis or other existence theorem from linear algebra. A subset is linearly independent if every finite relation forces every coefficient to be zero.
Order the linearly independent subsets by inclusion. This partially ordered set is nonempty, because the empty subset is independent. An empty chain has the empty subset as an upper bound. For any nonempty chain, its union is independent: every finite subset of that union lies in one member of the chain. Indeed choose one chain member containing each of its finitely many vectors, then take the largest among that finite collection of comparable members. Every finite relation in the union is therefore a relation in an independent chain member. The union is an upper bound.
Zorn's lemma gives a maximal independent subset . If were outside its span, then would still be independent. In a finite relationa nonzero could be inverted in the field , placing in the span of . If , independence of forces the remaining coefficients to be zero. This contradicts maximality, so spans .
Define the free module on as the direct sum : its elements are coefficient families with finite support. The mapis a module homomorphism. Spanning proves surjectivity; independence proves injectivity. Hence the vector-space freeness from maximal independence givesFinite support is essential; this is a direct sum, not an unrestricted product. The zero vector space uses and is free of rank zero. The proof for arbitrary vector spaces explicitly uses the axiom of choice through Zorn's lemma.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 56 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
A covariant derivative on the tangent bundle is an affine connection: it assigns a vector field to vector fields , is linear over smooth functions in , is real-linear in , and obeys the Leibniz rule . Thus it differentiates a vector field while taking account of how its local basis changes. It extends to tensor fields by the Leibniz rule, compatibility with tensor contraction, and for a scalar.
In a local basis , the connection components are defined by . In a coordinate basis, , soA covariant derivative of a tensor field has tensorial transformation properties, but the connection components themselves do not: changing the coordinate basis introduces second derivatives of the coordinate change. They describe the connection in a chosen basis, rather than components of a tensor.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 56 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The torsion tensor of an affine connection is , where the last term is the Lie bracket of vector fields. A torsion-free connection has . Since a coordinate basis commutes, this is equivalent there to ; in a general basis its commutator must also be included.
The Levi-Civita connection is the unique torsion-free connection with metric compatibility, . To derive its Christoffel symbols, lower the first index: . Metric compatibility givesWrite down this identity with the derivative indices , add the first two identities and subtract the third. Symmetry in the last two indices, supplied by the torsion-free connection, cancels all terms except twice . Raising the first index yieldsThis calculation proves uniqueness. Conversely, these Christoffel symbols are symmetric in and satisfy by substitution, proving existence as well.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 70 2 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
First prove necessity. If polynomials with integer coefficients converge to in the supremum norm, their values at and are convergent sequences of integers. Each such sequence is eventually constant, since a convergent sequence is Cauchy and two distinct integers are at distance at least one. Its limit is an integer. Thus .
For sufficiency we also need uniform convergence of the Bernstein polynomial to . Here is a direct argument. For , write . The binomial distribution has and . For every , uniform continuity of and the Chebyshev inequality giveFirst make small and then large; the bound is uniform in . Hence .
If the endpoints are integers, part (b) gives . Each coefficient multiplying in is an integer. Expanding by the binomial theorem therefore gives integer coefficients in the ordinary monomial basis. The triangle inequality proves . Thus the integer endpoint condition is necessary and sufficient for integer-coefficient polynomial approximation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 70 5 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The orthogonal projection has range , not all of : the latter is an infinite-dimensional vector space whereas is a finite-dimensional vector space. For a concrete counterexample, cannot belong to any finite-degree piecewise polynomial space, since all its derivatives are nonzero on every open interval. For , the B-splines are continuous, so the orthogonal projection is a map . For order one it instead has a generally discontinuous piecewise constant range. For example, a single interval indicator on is the projection of the constant function one onto its span, and is not continuous.
Write . Since is a positive scalar multiple of , the operator normal equations are equivalent toThe mixed-normalization spline Gram matrix is invertible: where and is the ordinary positive-definite matrix of inner products of a linearly independent basis. The positivity and unit-integral normalization of a B-spline give . The subpartition of unity for B-splines givesHere the operator norm of a matrix on is its maximum absolute row sum. Consequently,This proves the maximum-norm bound for spline projection.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 70 6 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
An orthonormal multiresolution analysis consists of closed subspaces of a Hilbert space of the Hilbert space such thatThere is a scaling function whose integer function translations form an orthonormal basis of . Consequently form an orthonormal basis of ; in particular is invariant under integer function translations.
Let be the orthogonal complement of in . Nesting, density and the trivial intersection imply the orthogonal direct sumFor example, telescoping and letting , gives this decomposition; the corresponding orthogonal projections converge strongly to zero and the identity by the intersection and density properties.
To construct the orthonormal wavelet, use to write the scaling refinement equation , with and . Put . The orthonormal translates and Fourier periodization criterion proved in part (b), applied to the scaling refinement equation, yieldsThis is the quadrature mirror filter identity. DefineThe Fourier series of is , and . The two rows and form a unitary matrix almost everywhere: both have squared norm one and their inner product is zero. This wavelet completion of a multiresolution filter proves not just orthogonality but completeness. Splitting a finer-scale coefficient Fourier series into its values at and , this invertible two-channel matrix resolves it into a coarse-scale channel and its complementary channel. Thus the integer function translations of form an orthonormal basis of .
The dilated functions therefore form an orthonormal basis of each . The orthogonal direct sum proves the conclusion: every orthonormal multiresolution analysis produces an orthonormal wavelet basis of .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 ib Paper 1 9E Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-07
The external direct sum of vector spaces consists of pairs with componentwise operations. For subspaces of one ambient space, the sum of vector subspaces is . The addition map from the external direct sum onto this subspace is surjective, with kernel . This kernel is isomorphic to the intersection. The rank-nullity theorem, together with , proves the dimension formula for a sum of subspaces.
For the supplied bases, solving for annihilating linear forms givesEach basis has rank three, so these hyperplanes are the whole subspaces. The two independent equations make the intersection two-dimensional. Imposing the requested zero components yieldsBoth satisfy the two equations and are independent, since their first components differ while . Hence they form the required basis.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 ib Paper 2 10E Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-07
A set is linearly dependent if some finite selection of distinct vectors admits a relation with coefficients not all zero. For a finite set this is just such a nontrivial relation using its vectors.
Prove dependence of vectors in by induction, starting with the zero-dimensional case. If all first coordinates vanish, select of the vectors and apply induction in . Otherwise relabel so the last vector has first coordinate . For , put . These vectors have zero first coordinate, so induction supplies , with some . Expanding gives a nontrivial linear dependence among the original vectors. The same proof works over any field.
Now express vectors of in coordinates relative to its given -element basis. Any other basis has at most elements: more would contain linearly dependent vectors. If it has elements, expressing the original basis in its coordinates makes the original vectors linearly dependent, a contradiction. Thus every basis has exactly elements.
Finally, the functions , , are bounded and continuous. Any finite relation among them can be multiplied by and integrated over . The orthogonality identityforces every coefficient to vanish. Arbitrarily large linearly independent finite sets exist, so the vector space of bounded continuous functions is infinite-dimensional.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 ib Paper 2 1E Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-07
Write for the conjugate transpose. Taking determinants in gives . Since the Hermitian matrix is invertible, every such is invertible and . The identity belongs to ; if , then ; and multiplying by and gives . Associativity comes from matrix multiplication, so this is a group.
The Hermitian form obeys precisely when . Thus is the group of linear isometries of this nondegenerate Hermitian form; positivity of is unnecessary.
For , is a unitary matrix. Here is a direct diagonalization of a matrix proof. Over , its characteristic polynomial has a root, giving a unit eigenvector with . Preservation of the inner product gives . If , then , so is invariant. The restriction is again a unitary matrix. Induction on the dimension supplies an orthonormal basis of eigenvectors. In that basis, is diagonal, with diagonal entries on the unit circle.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 1 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The endomorphisms of the finite-dimensional vector space over the complex numbers form the general linear Lie algebra with the usual addition and scalar multiplication and Lie bracket . This commutator is bilinear and antisymmetric, and expanding the six products verifies the Jacobi identity.
For a Lie subalgebra , being an abelian Lie algebra means . A nilpotent Lie algebra has , eventually zero; a solvable Lie algebra has , eventually zero. These are the lower central series of a Lie algebra and derived series of a Lie algebra, respectively. Nilpotence is a condition on the Lie bracket, and does not require every member to be a nilpotent endomorphism: a nonzero scalar multiple of the identity spans an abelian Lie algebra.
A flag of a vector space is an increasing chain of vector subspaces. The flag we construct is a complete flag, , where , and each is an invariant subspace for . We first prove the common-eigenvector assertion in the Lie theorem, by induction on ; the zero algebra is immediate. For nonzero solvable , its derived algebra is proper, so there is a codimension-one ideal of a Lie algebra containing . Write . By induction there are and a linear functional on such that for every .
Let be the cyclic subspace spanned by . The commutator derivation identity and show inductively thatThus and all its initial cyclic spans are -invariant. If , the first cyclic vectors form a basis, is also -invariant, and . For , the trace of a matrix commutator givesHence , since the field has characteristic zero. The nonzero common weight spaceis -invariant: . The restriction of to has an eigenvector, because is an algebraically closed field. This is a common eigenvector for . Its line is invariant, and repeating the argument on the quotient vector space gives the complete invariant flag. Equivalently, this proves simultaneous triangularization of a Lie algebra representation.
In a basis adapted to this complete flag, every member of is upper triangular, so every member of its derived algebra is strictly upper triangular. Products of strictly upper triangular matrices vanish, and each iterated Lie bracket of such matrices is a sum of these products. Consequently the derived algebra is a nilpotent Lie algebra. We may therefore take : it is an ideal, and the quotient Lie algebra is abelian. This also covers .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 1 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Here a reduced root system is crystallographic, as appropriate to a semisimple Lie algebra. It is a finite spanning set in a real inner product space of dimension , invariant under each Weyl reflectionwith for every pair of roots and . A base of a root system is a basis such that the coefficients of every root are integers that are either all nonnegative or all nonpositive. These define the positive system of a root system. We use the existing Cartan matrix conventionUsing the alternative denominator transposes all the matrices below.
The classification of rank-two root systems gives , , , and . In orthonormal coordinates we may choose the following simple roots and Cartan matrices:
- For , take , and . The positive roots are .
- For , take , and . The positive roots are .
- For , take the long root and short root , giving . The positive roots are . Interchanging the long and short convention gives type , which is the same rank-two classification up to the usual identification.
- For , take the short root and long root , giving . The positive roots are .
Each complete root system consists of these positive roots and their negatives. To see why the list is exhaustive, the off-diagonal Cartan matrix entries of two distinct simple roots are nonpositive integers, and their product is . Thus the product is or , corresponding to simple-root angles or . These determine the four systems and their length ratios.
The Weyl group of a rank-two root system is generated by the two simple Weyl reflections. Their product is a rotation of order , respectively, so the groups are the dihedral groups of order . The first is also the Klein four-group and the second the symmetric group . The root-orthogonal lines cut the plane into Weyl chambers, each of angle . A chosen fundamental chamber of a root system is , ; its walls are the two root-orthogonal lines. The Weyl group acts simply transitively on these open chambers.
Roots, reflecting lines and a fundamental chamber for the four crystallographic rank-two root systems
. Details. The crystallographic hypothesis matters: if the integer-pairing condition is dropped, reduced noncrystallographic systems of type also occur. They are not additional Lie-algebra root systems.
