Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 119 1 Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
The Yoneda lemma states that for and there is a natural bijectionIf is an epimorphism in the functor category, it is pointwise surjective, so is surjective. Yoneda identifies this map withThus every representable functor is a projective object in a category.
The colimit form of the Special adjoint functor theorem says that a colimit-preserving functor from a locally small, cocomplete, well-copowered category with a small generating family into a locally small category has a right adjoint functor. For small , the category is locally small and has colimits pointwise. Quotients of are represented by compatible equivalence relations on the sets , so they form a set; hence the category is well-copowered. The set of representables generates it by the Yoneda lemma. The theorem therefore gives a right adjoint to every small-colimit-preserving functorIn particular, product with a fixed functor is computed pointwise, and preserves colimits in the Category of sets. Hence preserves all small colimits and has a right adjoint . Thus is a cartesian closed category.
Now work in and write . If has binary products, thenThus exponentiation by is precomposition with . Precomposition between functor categories has a right adjoint given by Right Kan extension, so is a tiny object.
Conversely, suppose has a terminal object and is tiny. The representable is the terminal presheaf, and the exponential adjunction plus Yoneda givesSince is tiny, is a left adjoint and preserves all colimits; evaluation at also preserves pointwise colimits. Therefore the hom functor preserves coproducts and epimorphisms. Preservation of epimorphisms makes projective, while preservation of coproducts makes it indecomposable.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 119 2 Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
For with , the unit and counit of an adjunction areobtained by transposing identity morphisms. They satisfy the triangular identities and .
If is full and faithful, fullness gives a map with ; the second triangular identity and faithfulness show that is inverse to . Conversely, if is an isomorphism, then for the unique arrow whose transpose is iswhich proves that is full, and the triangular identities prove faithfulness. Hence (i) and (ii) are equivalent. Condition (ii) immediately gives (iii). Conversely, a natural isomorphism combines with the adjunction bijection to show naturally that is bijective; by naturality and the triangular identities this is the map induced by up to invertible natural conjugation, so is full and faithful. Thus all three conditions are equivalent.
Suppose . If is full and faithful, the unit is an isomorphism. For in the codomain of , the two adjunctions then give natural bijectionsBy the Yoneda lemma, the counit is an isomorphism, so the fully faithful adjoint criterion makes full and faithful. The converse is dual.
Now assume is full and faithful. For , its counit is invertible; for , its unit is invertible. DefineApplying , then using naturality and the triangular identities, reduces this composite to the same map asSince is faithful, the two displayed composites are equal.
For a morphism , let be its transpose under . The identities just proved giveIf every is monic and , this equation gives , hence ; thus is faithful on arrows whose domains are in the image of . Conversely, if for , naturality of and the second formula for giveBoth maps have domain , so the assumed faithfulness gives . These are the transposes of and , hence . Therefore is pointwise monic exactly under the stated faithfulness condition.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 165 1 iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
The Yoneda lemma and the definition of the nerve of a category giveThus such a map is precisely a diagram of objects and composable morphismsin . The remaining edges and higher faces record the composites forced by this string.