Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 iii Paper 7 2 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Here the Hom groups must be taken over ; the printed subscript in this part has no defined coefficient ring. For an arbitrary module , form the free moduleand define a module homomorphism by . Each element of has finite support, so this prescription extends uniquely and is well-defined. It is surjective because every is the image of . Thus every module is a quotient of a free module.
Let . The short exact sequence and the defining exactness condition for a projective module makesurjective. Lift to a map . Then , so is injective. Every has the decompositionwhose first term lies in and second lies in . If , applying gives , so the intersection is zero. ConsequentlyThis is a split short exact sequence and proves that projective modules are direct summands of free modules, including modules that are not finitely generated.