Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 ia Paper 4 7C ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Put . The Fibonacci recurrence matrix modulo an integer is , so . Direct matrix multiplication givesTaking the second coordinate provesFor explicit arithmetic behind the second power, squaring gives , whose square is the displayed . Thus the modular period assertions follow from calculations and the recurrence, not from quoting a period theorem.