Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 3 18G a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
Suppose the irreducible quadratic became reducible over . It would then have a root , and would be a quadratic intermediate extension. By the Fundamental theorem of Galois theory, would be a subgroup of index two in and hence a normal subgroup by the index-two subgroup is normal result. But the Simplicity of alternating groups says that is simple, while this subgroup would be proper and nontrivial. This contradiction proves that remains irreducible in .