Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2025 / ia / Paper 3 / 8D / Solution

Invertible matrices are closed under multiplication, contain $I$, have associative multiplication, and have inverses by the adjugate formula over the field ${\mathbb{F}}_p$. The first column can be any nonzero vector and the second any vector outside its span, so

For $p=2$, the matrix $\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 1\end{array}\right)$ has order three. There is no element of order six: $G{L}_2({\mathbb{F}}_2)\cong S_3$, whose element orders are $1,2,3$.

For $p>2$, $S{L}_2({\mathbb{F}}_p)=\ker \det$ is a proper normal subgroup. For $p=2$, the order-three subgroup in the copy of $S_3$ is proper and normal.

In $G{L}_2({\mathbb{F}}_{11})$, takewhere $A\le {\mathbb{F}}_{11}^{\times }$ is the subgroup of order five. This semidirect product has order $55$ and is nonabelian because a nontrivial diagonal element does not commute with translations.