Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ii Paper 4 19I a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
A compact topological group is a group equipped with a compact Hausdorff topology for which multiplication and inversion are continuous.
The special unitary group isIt is closed in the finite-dimensional real vector space because the equations and are closed conditions. It is bounded because every column of a unitary matrix has norm one. The Heine-Borel theorem therefore makes it compact. Matrix multiplication is continuous, and inversion is continuous because . Hence is a compact topological group.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ib Paper 2 10E i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
HereThe L1 norm and uniform norm satisfyso the identity from the metric to the metric is one-Lipschitz and therefore continuous. The two metrics do not induce the same topology on all of . Forone has but . Thus convergence need not imply uniform convergence.
Choose distinct and defineThe Vandermonde determinant is nonzero, so is a bijection. It is one-Lipschitz for the two uniform metrics. If are the associated Lagrange cardinal polynomials, thenand henceThus is also Lipschitz.
Let be the polynomials whose values lie in . Its image under lies in the bounded cube . It is closed: if , then the Lipschitz inverse gives uniform convergence , and passing to the limit pointwise preserves . By the Heine-Borel theorem, is compact, and the continuous inverse carries compactness back to . Therefore
Two stereographic charts on the circle 2026-10-14
Take the circle with its subspace topology. Write for its west point and for its east point. Two coordinate charts obtained by stereographic projection areBoth take values in the entire real line. Geometrically, join to and intersect the resulting line with : the height is . Projecting from instead gives height . Each projection omits its own starting point, but the other coordinate chart includes that point. Hence .[ref]
To verify the homeomorphisms, solve the displayed equations for . The inverse functions areEach formula lies on the circle, avoids its excluded point, and is continuous for every real argument. Substitution into the projection formulas returns or ; substitution in the other direction returns . Thus these are continuous bijections with continuous inverse functions, as required for coordinate charts. Since the Euclidean plane is Hausdorff and second countable, the subset with its subspace topology is too. This checks all three conditions for a topological manifold, rather than just drawing a smooth-looking curve.
On the overlap , both are excluded, so . Using , the topological transition map isFor example, has and . The two connected components of the overlap, the upper and lower arcs, correspond to the positive and negative parts of the punctured real line. The values and represent and , respectively, and belong to only one chart each. The reciprocal coordinate change and its inverse function are smooth functions away from zero, so this topological atlas also supplies a smooth atlas.
Why can neither chart be enlarged to a single coordinate chart on the whole circle? The circle is a closed set and a bounded set in the Euclidean plane, hence compact by the Heine-Borel theorem. A global coordinate chart would give a homeomorphism to a nonempty open set . Its image would be compact and therefore closed in the real line. By connectedness of the real line, this forces , which is not compact. This is the one-dimensional instance of no compact manifold has a single Euclidean chart. Locally the circle is indistinguishable from the real line; globally compactness obstructs a single chart.
