Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 140 3 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Take the usual convention that the smooth isotopy starts at . The exterior derivative commutes with a pullback of a differential form, soConsequentlyThe right-hand condition says precisely that is a symplectic isotopy.
Here an exact symplectic manifold is necessarily noncompact in positive dimension: if and , then , contradicting the positive symplectic volume and the Generalized Stokes theorem on a compact smooth manifold without boundary. Thus the paper's introductory word “closed” must here be read as “without boundary”, as its parenthesis suggests, rather than as including compactness.