Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 125 5 c Solution 2026-10-03
Since is bounded, a bound on bounds the projective height of . The Northcott theorem gives only finitely many possible rational -coordinates, and each has at most two points above it. Hence
By the Mordell-Weil theorem, . The canonical height is a positive-definite quadratic form on the lattice , so canonical-height lattice-point growth givesIf , this count is bounded; if , it is . Consequently
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 339 3 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The Horn copositive matrix is invariant under cyclic permutation of its five coordinates: its negative entries correspond precisely to neighboring indices on the five-cycle. For any , cyclically relabel the coordinates so that is a smallest coordinate. In particular, .
Using the stated identity in this coordinate order,The square is nonnegative, and both remaining terms are nonnegative since and . Cyclic invariance means the relabeling has not changed the quadratic form. Thus is a copositive matrix for every original ordering of .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 339 3 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Suppose , where is a positive semidefinite matrix and is a symmetric nonnegative matrix. Since , both and are nonnegative. Their sum is zero, so both vanish. In particular,Every coefficient in this sum is strictly positive and every is nonnegative, forcing for .
Now apply the same argument to all five cyclic shifts of . The Horn copositive matrix is cyclically invariant, so every shifted vector also has zero quadratic form. It follows that the entries of vanish on every cyclic block of three consecutive indices. Every pair of indices on a five-cycle lies in such a block, hence .
This would imply . But the zero quadratic form of a positive semidefinite matrix would then force , contradicting . Therefore lies outside the positive-semidefinite-plus-nonnegative cone. By the previous equivalence, its quartic form is a nonnegative polynomial that is not a sum of squares polynomial.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 341 2 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For algebraic stability, the weights must be nonnegative and the real symmetric matrix , where , must be a positive semidefinite matrix.
The weights are positive, but and , soA positive semidefinite matrix cannot have a negative diagonal entry, as its quadratic form at the first standard basis vector would be negative. Thus this Lobatto IIIA method is not algebraically stable, despite its A-stability.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 341 6 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A Runge-Kutta method with stage matrix , weights and step size isIts order measures accuracy as , while stability concerns how errors or stiff components propagate. Linear A-stability, strong stiff damping through L-stability, and nonlinear B-stability address different questions.
For the Dahlquist test equation , elimination of the stages gives the stability functionThe linear stability domain is . The method is A-stable when it contains the closed left half-plane, and L-stable when it is also true that as there. These conditions describe, respectively, stability for every non-growing scalar linear mode and damping of very rapidly decaying modes.
The Forward Euler method has , so it fails A-stability, for example at . In fact no nontrivial explicit Runge-Kutta method is A-stable: its stability function is a nonconstant polynomial, which is unbounded along the negative real axis. The Backward Euler method has . For , , and the function tends to zero at infinity, proving both A-stability and L-stability. The implicit midpoint rule has . The identity proves A-stability, but its limit rules out L-stability.
For nonlinear equations, a dissipative vector field satisfies . The corresponding exact solutions contract because the time derivative of their squared distance is twice that inner product. A B-stable method preserves this contraction for every , whenever its stages are well defined.
Let , , and . Expanding the update's squared norm, substituting , and symmetrizing the double sum proves the Runge-Kutta contractivity identityIf and the matrix is a positive semidefinite matrix, the first sum is nonpositive by dissipativity. The second double sum is nonnegative: sum the quadratic form of over each coordinate of the . Thus algebraic stability implies B-stability. Applied to complex scalar linear equations with the real part of the Hermitian inner product, the same argument also implies A-stability, where the stages are defined.
The Backward Euler method has , hence , and is algebraically stable. One can prove its nonlinear contraction directly: gives . The implicit midpoint rule has , and , so it is B-stable even though it is not L-stable.
Linear A-stability does not by itself imply nonlinear B-stability. The ODE trapezoidal rule has the same stability function as the implicit midpoint rule, but take the dissipative scalar field and . For any positive starting value, its trapezoidal update is . Thus two positive starting values have their distance doubled, violating B-stability. Its algebraic stability matrix also has a negative first diagonal entry. The field is globally Lipschitz continuous, so this is a well-defined nonlinear counterexample.
These examples distinguish accuracy, scalar stiff-mode stability, nonlinear contraction, and rapid stiff-mode damping. For implicit methods, solvability of the stage equations remains an additional requirement; a formal stability function alone does not establish it for arbitrary nonlinear problems.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 ib Paper 4 8E b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The symmetric matrix of the quadratic form in the standard basis isbecause the off-diagonal entries contribute twice to .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 ib Paper 4 8E c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
By the real spectral theorem, the real symmetric matrix has an orthonormal basis of eigenvectors. In that basis the associated quadratic form isRescaling the coordinates belonging to nonzero eigenvalues changes every positive coefficient to and every negative coefficient to . Hence the diagonal normal form has one positive square for each positive eigenvalue and one negative square for each negative eigenvalue. By Sylvester's law of inertia, these counts do not depend on the diagonalizing basis, so
The numerical eigenvalues are not invariant under a general change of basis, because the matrix changes by congruence rather than similarity. For example, on a one-dimensional space let . Its matrix in the basis is , whereas in the basis it is . The eigenvalue changes from to , although its sign, and therefore the signature, is unchanged.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 iii Paper 125 3 a Solution Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-03
Forthe chord-and-tangent group law gives, for distinct nonopposite points and ,For doubling, replace the slope byThe point at infinity is the identity and .
Let the -coordinates of be . Applying the addition formula with and givesSubstituting and simplifying yieldsMultiplying the two addition formulas and eliminating in the same way gives
These identities are the algebraic source of two parallelogram laws. Applied to pullbacks of the pole divisor of , they implyfor isogenies of elliptic curves. Together with , this makes the degree a quadratic form. Applied to the Absolute logarithmic Weil height of the four -coordinates, with bounded terms removed by passage to the limit defining the canonical height of an elliptic curve, they similarly give
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 ib Paper 2 8F Solution Created 2026-09-23 Updated 2026-09-25
Let satisfy for every vector . If there is nothing to prove. Otherwise choose with . For every and every real number ,so the hypothesis gives . Taking two values of shows that . Sincewe obtain . Thus one of the two linear functionals is zero.
Sylvester's law of inertia says that, in a suitable basis, every real quadratic form isThe rank is , and the signature is ; both are independent of the chosen basis.
If , its polar form has image contained in , so . If , the two functionals must be independent and, after taking their sum and difference, is a difference of two squares. Hence . If , then . In every case,Conversely, this inequality leaves onlyup to a linear change of coordinates. These factor respectively as , , and . Therefore
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 iii Paper 216 1 a Solution Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-03
The likelihood function and prior distribution give the posterior densityCompleting the square in the quadratic form givesThus Gaussian conjugacy for a normal linear model yields
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 225 1 a iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
This symmetric finite-rank integral operator is not positive. For , set . Directly,The associated quadratic form isEvery covariance operator is a positive operator, so this operator is not a covariance operator.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 ib Paper 4 8F Solution Created 2026-09-23 Updated 2026-09-25
The symmetric bilinear form associated with a real quadratic form is obtained by polarization identity:In coordinates , replacing by its symmetric part does not change , and the formula gives ; this proves existence. A symmetric form is positive semidefinite when for every , and positive definite when the inequality is strict for every .
The diagonalization theorem for real quadratic forms says that some basis puts any symmetric form intowith further zero coordinates. Sylvester's law of inertia says that is independent of the diagonalizing basis. To prove this, let be the span of the positive coordinate vectors and let be the span of the negative and zero vectors. If is positive definite for another diagonalization and , thenso the two spaces intersect nontrivially. A vector in the intersection would have both positive and nonpositive square, a contradiction. Thus ; symmetry gives . Applying the same argument to gives , and then .
For the nondegenerate form on , write its inertia as , so . The restriction vanishes identically on : polarization gives for . Projection of to the positive coordinate space is injective, since a vector with zero positive projection cannot be isotropic unless it is zero. Hence ; projection to the negative space likewise gives . Therefore .
The matrix of is . If , it has rank one and inertia , hence signature one; if , its rank and signature are zero. The coefficientwise product has matrix , where , so it has the same rank-one conclusion when and is zero otherwise.
Finally, diagonalization writes every positive semidefinite form as a sum of squares, say and . Bilinearity of coefficientwise multiplication givesa sum of positive semidefinite rank-at-most-one forms. Thus is positive semidefinite.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 129 4 b ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
For , the product in the cube average isThe expression in parentheses is the third additive derivative of the quadratic form , so it vanishes. Every cube contributes one and therefore the quadratic phase satisfies
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2026 iii Paper 168 4 iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Apply the coordinate-replacement proof from part (ii) directly to the quadratic formThe zero diagonal makes multilinear. For coordinate ,and the row and column assumptions implyEvery hybrid vector appearing during replacement has independent centered variance-one coordinates with fourth moments at most . The degree-one case of part (i) therefore givesThe fourth-order Taylor remainder from replacing coordinate is at most . Summing the replacement errors yields the stronger estimate
Pointed cone 2026-10-06
A convex cone containing no nonzero line through the origin, equivalently . The copositive cone is pointed: a matrix in both it and its negative has zero quadratic form on the nonnegative orthant; testing and kills all entries.
Positive-definite operator Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-06
A self-adjoint operator is positive definite when for every nonzero vector in its domain. In finite dimension it is invertible and has positive eigenvalues. In infinite dimension, strict positivity of individual quadratic-form values need not give a bounded inverse; the stronger uniform bound with supplies coercivity.
For maps and between finite-dimensional inner-product spaces, with , the operator is positive definite. Its quadratic form is , whose zero set is . This uses the adjoint operator relation .
Positive-semidefinite-plus-nonnegative cone Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
The sums of a real positive semidefinite matrix and a symmetric nonnegative matrix form a convex cone inside the copositive cone. Both terms have nonnegative quadratic forms on the nonnegative orthant. The Horn copositive matrix shows that the inclusion is strict in dimension five; the sum of squares criterion for a biquadratic form explains this cone's relation to semidefinite programming.
Principal-axis reduction of a quadric 2026-10-07
Write a real quadratic polynomial as , with symmetric. If is invertible, translation by removes the linear term. An orthonormal eigenbasis then makes the remaining quadratic form diagonal. Eigenvalue signs and the translated constant determine the real geometry, such as an ellipsoid or a one-sheet hyperboloid. A singular requires separate treatment of linear terms in its null directions; a center need not exist.
Quadratic functional 2026-10-07
A quadratic functional on a real vector space combines a quadratic form , a linear functional and a constant. If is a symmetric bounded bilinear form, its first variation is . For a strictly positive , an existing stationary point is the unique minimizer by the quadratic variational principle for a symmetric positive operator.
Quadratic optimization 2026-10-06
Optimization of a quadratic form or quadratic-plus-linear objective over specified constraints. Convexity depends on the matrix and feasible domain; discrete restrictions lead to binary quadratic optimization.