Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 119 3 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A reflexive pair has a common section with . Form the pushout in a category of and , and write its two maps from as . Its relation , composed with , gives . Thus . Any with gives the compatible pair for this pushout and therefore factors uniquely through . This proves the coequalizer of a reflexive pair from a pushout construction.
There is a genuine transcription difference: the original PDF says finite products in the finite-colimit assertion, while the TeX says finite coproducts. The PDF assertion is false with products. Even retaining a pushout-existence assumption, the full subcategory of the Category of sets on nonempty sets has finite products, pushouts, and all coequalizers, but no initial object, hence no empty colimit. Regard the poset with elements , orderand incomparable as a category. It has finite meets and top , hence finite products in a category. Every reflexive pair in a poset is an equal pair and has its identity as a coequalizer. But have no least upper bound, so they have no coproduct in a category.
For the corrected construction using finite coproducts, let be a finite diagram in a category. PutDefine on the summand indexed by as and . Maps with are exactly cocone under a diagram data on . Hence their universal coequalizer is its colimit. Replace by the reflexive pairwhose common section is the second injection and whose coequalizer is unchanged. This proves construction of finite colimits from coproducts and reflexive coequalizers, including the empty diagram via the empty coproduct: