Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 ia Paper 1 1B b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
If , cancellation of successive factors gives for every positive integer . Hence is the identity element exactly when is, proving that conjugate group elements have the same order of a group element. For permutations, the sign group homomorphism similarly givesThus conjugate permutations have the same sign of a permutation.
The converse is false: permutation order and sign do not determine conjugacy. In the symmetric group , take and . Both have order three and positive sign. However, fixes three symbols whereas fixes none. If fixes a symbol , then fixes , and applying the inverse conjugation gives a bijection between the fixed-symbol sets. Their different fixed-point counts therefore prove that are not conjugate. Equivalently their cycle types and differ. Equal order and sign are necessary, but not sufficient, for conjugacy.