Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 ii Paper 1 11G Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
For binary linear codes of length , the bar product of binary linear codes is . The parametrization is injective and linear, so its dimension is . If , a nonzero word has Hamming weight at least ; if , . Taking and of minimum weight showsFor , the inner product of and is , since . The spaces have complementary dimensions, proving .
Define the Reed-Muller code by evaluating all multilinear polynomials of total degree at most at the points of . The squarefree monomials are independent functions, giving dimension . Splitting according to the last variable gives the Reed-Muller bar-product recursion , with the endpoint codes interpreted in the usual way. The distance recursion gives .
To identify the Dual of a Reed-Muller code, multiply a monomial of degree at most by one of degree at most . The product omits some variable, so its sum over is even and its binary inner product is zero. The binomial dimension identity then gives
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 ii Paper 3 3K b ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
A square-free monomial in variables of degree evaluates to one at exactly points of , an even number. Since parity of Hamming weight is a linear functional over , every sum of such evaluation words also has even weight. Hence every word in has even weight.
If and have degrees at most and , then has degree at most . The binary inner product of their evaluation words is the parity of the weight of the evaluation of , and is therefore zero. ThusFinally, binomial symmetry givesso the inclusion has equal dimensions andThis is the Dual of a Reed-Muller code.