Part IA, {{ year }}
Part IA 2001
1.I.1C
Part IA, 2001 commentShow, using the summation convention or otherwise, that (a.b)c, for a, b, c
The function is defined by where is a unit vector in . Show that is linear and find the elements of a matrix such that for all .
Find all solutions to the equation . Evaluate . Describe the function П geometrically. Justify your answer.
1.I.2C
Part IA, 2001 commentDefine what is meant by the statement that the vectors are linearly independent. Determine whether the following vectors are linearly independent and justify your answer.
For the vectors taken from a real vector space consider the statements A) are linearly dependent, B) , C) , not all , D) , not both , E) , F) basis of that contains all 3 vectors .
State if the following implications are true or false (no justification is required): i) , vi) , ii) , vii) , iii) , viii) , iv) , ix) , v) , x) .
3.II.7E
Part IA, 2001 commentState Lagrange's theorem. Use it to describe all groups of order , where is a fixed prime number.
Find all the subgroups of a fixed cyclic group of order .
3.II.8D
Part IA, 2001 comment(i) Let denote the alternating group of even permutations of four symbols. Let be the 3-cycle and be the pairs of transpositions and . Find , and show that is generated by and .
(ii) Let and be groups and let
Show how to make into a group in such a way that contains subgroups isomorphic to and .
If is the dihedral group of order and is the cyclic group of order 2 , show that is isomorphic to . Is the group isomorphic to ?
1.I
Part IA, 2001 commentWhat does it mean to say that as ?
Show that, if and , then as .
If further for all and , show that as .
Give an example to show that the non-vanishing of for all need not imply the non-vanishing of .
1.I.4D
Part IA, 2001 commentStarting from the theorem that any continuous function on a closed and bounded interval attains a maximum value, prove Rolle's Theorem. Deduce the Mean Value Theorem.
Let be a differentiable function. If for all show that is a strictly increasing function.
Conversely, if is strictly increasing, is for all ?
1.II.9D
Part IA, 2001 comment(i) If are complex numbers show that if, for some , the set is bounded and , then converges absolutely. Use this result to define the radius of convergence of the power series .
(ii) If as show that has radius of convergence equal to .
(iii) Give examples of power series with radii of convergence 1 such that (a) the series converges at all points of the circle of convergence, (b) diverges at all points of the circle of convergence, and (c) neither of these occurs.
1.II.10D
Part IA, 2001 commentSuppose that is a continuous real-valued function on with . If show that there exists with and .
Deduce that if is a continuous function from the closed bounded interval to itself, there exists at least one fixed point, i.e., a number belonging to with . Does this fixed point property remain true if is a continuous function defined (i) on the open interval and (ii) on ? Justify your answers.
1.II.11D
Part IA, 2001 comment(i) Show that if is twice continuously differentiable then, given , we can find some constant and such that
for all .
(ii) Let be twice continuously differentiable on (with one-sided derivatives at the end points), let and be strictly positive functions and let .
If and a sequence is defined by , show that is a decreasing sequence of points in and hence has limit . What is ? Using part (i) or otherwise estimate the rate of convergence of to , i.e., the behaviour of the absolute value of for large values of .
1.II.12D
Part IA, 2001 commentExplain what it means for a function to be Riemann integrable on , and give an example of a bounded function that is not Riemann integrable.
Show each of the following statements is true for continuous functions , but false for general Riemann integrable functions .
(i) If is such that for all in and , then for all in .
(ii) is differentiable and .
2.I.1B
Part IA, 2001 commentFind the solution to
in the range subject to , where is the Heavyside function defined by
Sketch the solution.
2.I.2B
Part IA, 2001 commentThe function satisfies the inhomogeneous second-order linear differential equation
Find the solution that satisfies the conditions that and is bounded as .
1.II.5C
Part IA, 2001 commentThe matrix
defines a linear map by . Find a basis for the kernel of for all values of .
Let and be bases of . Show that there exists a matrix , to be determined in terms of and , such that, for every linear mapping , if has matrix with respect to and matrix with respect to , then .
For the bases
find the basis transformation matrix and calculate .
2.II.5B
Part IA, 2001 commentThe real sequence satisfies the difference equation
Show that the general solution can be written
where and are arbitrary real constants.
Now let satisfy
Show that a particular solution of can be written in the form
where
and .
Hence, find the general solution to .
- Part IA, 2001
commentThe function satisfies the linear equation
The Wronskian, , of two independent solutions denoted and is defined to be
Let be given. In this case, show that the expression for can be interpreted as a first-order inhomogeneous differential equation for . Hence, by explicit derivation, show that may be expressed as
where the rôle of should be briefly elucidated.
Show that satisfies
Verify that is a solution of
Hence, using with and expanding the integrand in powers of to order , find the first three non-zero terms in the power series expansion for a solution, , of ( ) that is independent of and satisfies .
2.II.7B
Part IA, 2001 commentConsider the linear system
where
where is real and is a real constant, .
Find a (complex) eigenvector, e, of and its corresponding (complex) eigenvalue, . Show that the second eigenvector and corresponding eigenvalue are respectively and , where the bar over the symbols signifies complex conjugation. Hence explain how the general solution to can be written as
where is complex.
Write down a differential equation for and hence, for , deduce the solution to which satisfies the initial condition .
Is the linear system resonant?
By taking the limit of the solution already found deduce the solution satisfying when .
2.II.8B
Part IA, 2001 commentCarnivorous hunters of population prey on vegetarians of population . In the absence of hunters the prey will increase in number until their population is limited by the availability of food. In the absence of prey the hunters will eventually die out. The equations governing the evolution of the populations are
where and are positive constants, and and are non-negative functions of time, . By giving an interpretation of each term explain briefly how these equations model the system described.
Consider these equations for . In the two cases and determine the location and the stability properties of the critical points of . In both of these cases sketch the typical solution trajectories and briefly describe the ultimate fate of hunters and prey.
4.I.3A
Part IA, 2001 commentDerive the equation
for the motion of a particle of mass under an attractive central force , where and is the distance of the particle from the centre of force, and where is the angular momentum of the particle about the centre of force.
[Hint: you may assume the expressions for the radial and transverse accelerations in the form .]
4.I.4A
Part IA, 2001 commentTwo particles of masses and at positions and are subject to forces . Show that the centre of mass moves at a constant velocity. Obtain the equation of motion for the relative position of the particles. How does the reduced mass
of the system enter?
4.II.9A
Part IA, 2001 commentThe position and velocity of a particle of mass are measured in a frame which rotates at constant angular velocity with respect to an inertial frame. Write down the equation of motion of the particle under a force .
Find the motion of the particle in coordinates with initial condition
where . Show that the particle has a maximum speed at , and find this speed.
[Hint: you may find it useful to consider the combination .]
4.II.10A
Part IA, 2001 commentA spherical raindrop of radius and density falls down at a velocity through a fine stationary mist. As the raindrop falls its volume grows at the rate with constant . The raindrop is subject to the gravitational force and a resistive force with a positive constant. Show and satisfy
Find an expression for , and deduce that as time increases tends to the constant value , and thence the raindrop tends to a constant acceleration which is less than .
4.II.11A
Part IA, 2001 commentA spacecraft of mass moves under the gravitational influence of the Sun of mass and with universal gravitation constant . After a disastrous manoeuvre, the unfortunate spacecraft finds itself exactly in a parabolic orbit about the Sun: the orbit with zero total energy. Using the conservation of energy and angular momentum, or otherwise, show that in the subsequent motion the distance of the spacecraft from the Sun satisfies
with constants and .
4.II.12A
Part IA, 2001 commentFind the moment of inertia of a uniform solid cylinder of radius , length and total mass about its axis.
The cylinder is released from rest at the top of an inclined plane of length and inclination to the horizontal. The first time the plane is perfectly smooth and the cylinder slips down the plane without rotating. The experiment is then repeated after the plane has been roughened, so that the cylinder now rolls without slipping at the point of contact. Show that the time taken to roll down the roughened plane is times the time taken to slip down the smooth plane.
1.II.6C
Part IA, 2001 commentAssume that is a particular solution to the equation with and a real matrix . Explain why the general solution to is given by where is any vector such that .
Now assume that is a real symmetric matrix with three different eigenvalues and . Show that eigenvectors of with respect to different eigenvalues are orthogonal. Let be a normalised eigenvector of with respect to the eigenvalue , . Show that the linear system
where denotes the unit matrix, is solvable if and only if . Show that the general solution is given by
[Hint: consider the components of and with respect to a basis of eigenvectors of .]
Consider the matrix and the vector
Verify that and are eigenvectors of . Show that is solvable and find its general solution.
4.I.1E
Part IA, 2001 comment(a) Show that, given a set , there is no bijection between and its power set.
(b) Does there exist a set whose members are precisely those sets that are not members of themselves? Justify your answer.
4.I.2E
Part IA, 2001 commentProve, by induction or otherwise, that
Find the number of sequences consisting of zeroes and ones that contain exactly zeroes and at most ones.
4.II.5E
Part IA, 2001 comment(a) Prove Wilson's theorem, that , where is prime.
(b) Suppose that is an odd prime. Express as a power of .
[Hint: .]
4.II.6E
Part IA, 2001 commentState and prove the principle of inclusion-exclusion. Use it to calculate , where is Euler's -function.
In a certain large college, a survey revealed that of the fellows detest at least one of the pop stars Hairy, Dirty and Screamer. detest Hairy, detest Dirty and detest Screamer. If detest only Screamer and detest all three, what proportion detest Hairy and Dirty but not Screamer?
4.II.7E
Part IA, 2001 comment(a) Prove that, if is prime and is not a multiple of , then .
(b) The order of is the least positive integer such that . Suppose now that ; what can you say about in terms of ? Show that .
(c) Suppose that is an odd prime. What is the order of if ? Find a condition on that is equivalent to the existence of an integer with .
4.II.8E
Part IA, 2001 commentWhat is the Principle of Mathematical Induction? Derive it from the statement that every non-empty set of positive integers has a least element.
Prove, by induction on , that for all .
What is wrong with the following argument?
"Theorem: .
Proof: Assume that and . Add to both sides to get
So, by induction, the theorem is proved."
2.I.3F
Part IA, 2001 commentThe following problem is known as Bertrand's paradox. A chord has been chosen at random in a circle of radius . Find the probability that it is longer than the side of the equilateral triangle inscribed in the circle. Consider three different cases:
a) the middle point of the chord is distributed uniformly inside the circle,
b) the two endpoints of the chord are independent and uniformly distributed over the circumference,
c) the distance between the middle point of the chord and the centre of the circle is uniformly distributed over the interval .
[Hint: drawing diagrams may help considerably.]
2.I.4F
Part IA, 2001 commentThe Ruritanian authorities decided to pardon and release one out of three remaining inmates, and , kept in strict isolation in the notorious Alkazaf prison. The inmates know this, but can't guess who among them is the lucky one; the waiting is agonising. A sympathetic, but corrupted, prison guard approaches and offers to name, in exchange for a fee, another inmate (not who is doomed to stay. He says: "This reduces your chances to remain here from to : will it make you feel better?" hesitates but then accepts the offer; the guard names .
Assume that indeed will not be released. Determine the conditional probability
and thus check the guard's claim, in three cases:
a) when the guard is completely unbiased (i.e., names any of and with probability if the pair is to remain jailed),
b) if he hates and would certainly name him if is to remain jailed,
c) if he hates and would certainly name him if is to remain jailed.
- Part IA, 2001
commentI play tennis with my parents; the chances for me to win a game against are and against Dad , where . We agreed to have three games, and their order can be (where I play against Dad, then Mum then again Dad) or . The results of games are independent.
Calculate under each of the two orders the probabilities of the following events:
a) that I win at least one game,
b) that I win at least two games,
c) that I win at least two games in succession (i.e., games 1 and 2 or 2 and 3 , or 1 , 2 and 3,
d) that I win exactly two games in succession (i.e., games 1 and 2 or 2 and 3 , but not 1,2 and 3 ),
e) that I win exactly two games (i.e., 1 and 2 or 2 and 3 or 1 and 3 , but not 1,2 and 3.
In each case a)- e) determine which order of games maximizes the probability of the event. In case e) assume in addition that .
2.II.10F
Part IA, 2001 commentA random point is distributed uniformly in a unit circle so that the probability that it falls within a subset is proportional to the area of . Let denote the distance between the point and the centre of the circle. Find the distribution function , the expected value and the variance .
Let be the angle formed by the radius through the random point and the horizontal line. Prove that and are independent random variables.
Consider a coordinate system where the origin is placed at the centre of . Let and denote the horizontal and vertical coordinates of the random point. Find the covariance and determine whether and are independent.
Calculate the sum of expected values . Show that it can be written as the expected value and determine the random variable .
1.II.7C
Part IA, 2001 commentFor and the equation describes a circle in the complex plane. Find its centre and radius. What does the equation describe if ? Sketch the circles for and .
Show that the complex function for satisfies .
[Hint: means that and such that
For two circles and a function is defined by
Prove that . Show that
2.II.11F
Part IA, 2001 commentDipkomsky, a desperado in the wild West, is surrounded by an enemy gang and fighting tooth and nail for his survival. He has guns, , pointing in different directions and tries to use them in succession to give an impression that there are several defenders. When he turns to a subsequent gun and discovers that the gun is loaded he fires it with probability and moves to the next one. Otherwise, i.e. when the gun is unloaded, he loads it with probability or simply moves to the next gun with complementary probability . If he decides to load the gun he then fires it or not with probability and after that moves to the next gun anyway.
Initially, each gun had been loaded independently with probability . Show that if after each move this distribution is preserved, then . Calculate the expected value and variance Var of the number of loaded guns under this distribution.
[Hint: it may be helpful to represent as a sum of random variables taking values 0 and 1.]
2.II.12F
Part IA, 2001 commentA taxi travels between four villages, , situated at the corners of a rectangle. The four roads connecting the villages follow the sides of the rectangle; the distance from to and to is 5 miles and from to and to miles. After delivering a customer the taxi waits until the next call then goes to pick up the new customer and takes him to his destination. The calls may come from any of the villages with probability and each customer goes to any other village with probability . Naturally, when travelling between a pair of adjacent corners of the rectangle, the taxi takes the straight route, otherwise (when it travels from to or to or vice versa) it does not matter. Distances within a given village are negligible. Let be the distance travelled to pick up and deliver a single customer. Find the probabilitites that takes each of its possible values. Find the expected value and the variance Var .
3.I.3C
Part IA, 2001 commentFor a real function with and state the chain rule for the derivative .
By changing variables to and , where and with a suitable function to be determined, find the general solution of the equation
3.I.4A
Part IA, 2001 commentSuppose that
Show that is an exact differential.
Show that
3.II.9C
Part IA, 2001 commentExplain, with justification, how the nature of a critical (stationary) point of a function can be determined by consideration of the eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix of if is non-singular. What happens if is singular?
Let . Find the critical points of and determine their nature in the different cases that arise according to the values of the parameter .
3.II.10A
Part IA, 2001 commentState the rule for changing variables in a double integral.
Let be the region defined by
Using the transformation and , show that
3.II.11B
Part IA, 2001 commentState the divergence theorem for a vector field in a closed region bounded by a smooth surface .
Let be a scalar field. By choosing for arbitrary constant vector , show that
Let be the bounded region enclosed by the surface which consists of the cone with and the plane , where are cylindrical polar coordinates. Verify that holds for the scalar field where is a constant.
3.II.12B
Part IA, 2001 commentIn show that, within a closed surface , there is at most one solution of Poisson's equation, , satisfying the boundary condition on
where and are functions of position on , and is everywhere non-negative.
Show that
are solutions of Laplace's equation on .
Find a solution of Laplace's equation in the region that satisfies the boundary conditions
where is a positive integer. Is your solution the only possible solution?
1.II.8C
Part IA, 2001 commentLet denote the straight line through with directional vector
Show that is a subspace of and show that for some .
For fixed let be the set of all the parallel straight lines with directional vector . On an addition and a scalar multiplication are defined by
Explain why these operations are well-defined. Show that the addition is associative and that there exists a zero vector which should be identified.
You may now assume that is a vector space. If is a basis for show that is a basis for .
For a linear map is defined by
Find the matrix of with respect to the basis .
3.I.1F
Part IA, 2001 commentFor a matrix , prove that if and only if and . Prove that if and only if .
[Hint: it is easy to check that
3.I.2D
Part IA, 2001 commentShow that the set of Möbius transformations of the extended complex plane form a group. Show further that an arbitrary Möbius transformation can be expressed as the composition of maps of the form
3.II.5F
Part IA, 2001 commentLet be matrices, real or complex. Define the trace to be the sum of diagonal entries . Define the commutator to be the difference . Give the definition of the eigenvalues of a matrix and prove that it can have at most two distinct eigenvalues. Prove that a) , b) equals the sum of the eigenvalues of , c) if all eigenvalues of are equal to 0 then , d) either is a diagonalisable matrix or the square , e) where and is the unit matrix.
- Part IA, 2001
commentDefine the notion of an action of a group on a set . Define orbit and stabilizer, and then, assuming that is finite, state and prove the Orbit-Stabilizer Theorem.
Show that the group of rotations of a cube has order 24 .