Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 ia Paper 1 1B b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Place the cube vertices at . The four vertices whose coordinate product is form ; those with product form . Within either set, two distinct vertices differ in exactly two coordinates, so every edge has length and each set is a regular tetrahedron.
A member of the cube rotation group is a signed permutation matrix of determinant one. There are permutations of the coordinate axes and four choices of signs for each permutation that give determinant one, so . Such a matrix maps a coordinate-product class to a coordinate-product class. Moreover, the rotation through a quarter-turn interchanges the classes. Thus the orbit of consists of exactly . By the orbit-stabilizer theorem, the tetrahedron stabilizer in the cube rotation group has order