Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 ia Paper 3 6D a ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-07
For and , direct multiplication gives . In , and , soTo rule out all conjugators when , suppose and write . Comparing gives and . Its determinant condition is , so . The nonzero squares modulo five are and , and therefore no such exists. The two matrices are not conjugate in . This is the square-class obstruction in unipotent conjugacy in SL2 over a finite field; checking only diagonal conjugators would not by itself exclude every possible conjugator.