Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 101 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The spectrum of a commutative ring is the setFor an ideal , set . The Zariski topology declares precisely these subsets to be closed sets. Using arbitrary subsets instead of ideals gives the same definition, because a prime ideal contains a subset exactly when it contains the ideal generated by that subset.
We verify the closed set axioms directly. First, and . For any family of ideals,since containing the sum is equivalent to containing every summand. For two ideals,Indeed, containing either or implies containing their product of ideals. Conversely, if a prime ideal contains but does not contain , choose . For every , , so the prime ideal property forces . Thus .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 ii Paper 2 20H a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Distinct prime-power ideals are pairwise comaximal. For comaximal ideals, product equals intersection, so induction givesThe Chinese remainder theorem therefore gives the ring isomorphism
The ideal approximation theorem, proved by applying this Chinese-remainder map one prime power deeper, suppliesEquivalently, at every prime dividing .