Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 32 2 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The squares in are . The following table counts affine solutions at each , with one point at infinity to be added:Hence . In characteristic five, a finite point has order two precisely when . The first cubic has three roots , giving four elements killed by two, including . The second cubic has only the root , giving two elements killed by two. An isomorphism of groups would preserve these counts, so the groups are not isomorphic.
More precisely doubles to and has order four; the independent two-torsion point gives . On , the point doubles to , which doubles to ; it therefore has order eight. Thus the eight-point isogenous elliptic curves over F5 have point groups