Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 ii Paper 4 18H i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The irreducible cubic is separable, and its Galois group acts transitively on its three roots. The only transitive subgroups of areFor the cycle , the Lagrange resolvent for a cubic obeys . A transposition interchanging sends to . Since , these scalars are fixed by every automorphism. Thus the two possibilities for the image set areThese are descriptions of sets, so coincident values or a zero resolvent are not being asserted distinct.
Resolvent (Galois theory) 2026-10-14
A resolvent is an auxiliary polynomial built from expressions in the roots of a polynomial. The action of its Galois group on those expressions gives information about solvability and intermediate field extensions. A Lagrange resolvent for a cubic uses Fourier combinations of the three roots.