Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 ib Paper 1 9G iv Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Induct on . The one-dimensional assertion is immediate, and the zero-dimensional case is vacuous. If has a cyclic vector spanning all of , the direct proof in part (ii) applies. Otherwise choose and let be its cyclic subspace. Part (i) makes invariant; the absence of a cyclic vector makes it proper and nonzero.
By induction, the restriction to is annihilated by , and the induced map on is annihilated by . The quotient assertion means . Applying the restriction assertion next givesBy the characteristic factorization in part (iii), this is precisely . HenceThis is the Cayley-Hamilton theorem from cyclic subspaces; using the quotient map is what makes the argument valid even when the block is nonzero.