Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 165 3 ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Apply the rational Serre spectral sequence to the path-loop fibration of . Its fiber iswhose rational cohomology ring is with . Since the path space is contractible, must transgress to a nonzero class . Multiplicativity givesOver these differentials pair and kill every positive-degree class except , while graded commutativity gives . Hence
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2026 iii Paper 114 2 Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Give the closed oriented genus- surface its usual CW structure with one vertex, one-cells , and one two-cell attached along . The cellular boundary maps vanish after abelianization, soChoose degree-one classes dual to and orient by . The intersection pairing, equivalently the cellular diagonal approximation, gives the cohomology ring of a closed oriented surface:and all and vanish.
For the space , use the genus-two CW structure and attach an additional two-cell along . Both two-cell attaching words have zero exponent sum in every one-cell, so the cellular boundary is zero. HenceLet be the degree-two classes dual respectively to the original surface cell and the new cell. The original relator and the new relator givetogether with the products forced by graded commutativity. Every other product of degree-one basis classes is zero, and every product of total degree greater than two is zero. These relations completely determine the cohomology ring of .