Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 iii Paper 7 2 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
First show that free modules are flat. If , distributivity of the tensor product of modules givesExplicitly, maps to , and the inverse sends a finitely supported tuple to . For an injection , the tensor map is therefore the coordinatewise injection . This proves flatness for any free rank.
By part (c), a projective module is a direct summand of a free module . The latter is flat by the preceding argument, and part (b) proves that its summand is flat. Therefore . This proves projective modules are flat directly from the exactness and splitting definitions.