Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2021 / ib / Paper 1 / 1E / Solution

The mapis a nonzero linear functional: otherwise $v$ would lie in the radical of a bilinear form, contradicting nondegeneracy. Its kernel is $v^{\perp }$, so the rank-nullity theorem gives $\dim v^{\perp }=n-1$. Antisymmetry gives $⟨v,v⟩=-⟨v,v⟩=0$, hence $v\in v^{\perp }$.

Suppose $w\in W$ is orthogonal to every vector of $W$. Since $W\subseteq v^{\perp }$, it is also orthogonal to $v$, and therefore toFor a nondegenerate bilinear form, $(v^{\perp }{)}^{\perp }=\mathbb{R}v$: both sides have dimension one and the latter is contained in the former. Thus $w\in W\cap \mathbb{R}v=\{0\}$, proving that the restriction to $W$ is nondegenerate.

The space $W$ has dimension $n-2$ and again carries a nondegenerate antisymmetric form. Induction, starting from the zero-dimensional space, shows that $\dim W$ is even. Therefore $n=\dim W+2$ is even. Equivalently, every finite-dimensional symplectic vector space has even dimension.