Part IA, {{ year }}
Part IA 2006
1.I.1B
Part IA, 2006 commentConsider the cone in defined by
Find a unit normal to at the point such that .
Show that if satisfies
and then
1.I.2A
Part IA, 2006 commentExpress the unit vector of spherical polar coordinates in terms of the orthonormal Cartesian basis vectors .
Express the equation for the paraboloid in (i) cylindrical polar coordinates and (ii) spherical polar coordinates .
In spherical polar coordinates, a surface is defined by , where is a real non-zero constant. Find the corresponding equation for this surface in Cartesian coordinates and sketch the surfaces in the two cases and .
3.II.7D
Part IA, 2006 commentLet be the group of real matrices with determinant 1 and let be a homomorphism. On consider the product
Show that with this product is a group.
Find the homomorphism or homomorphisms for which is a commutative group.
Show that the homomorphisms for which the elements of the form with , commute with every element of are precisely those such that
with an arbitrary homomorphism.
3.II.8D
Part IA, 2006 commentShow that every Möbius transformation can be expressed as a composition of maps of the forms: and , where .
Show that if and are two triples of distinct points in , there exists a unique Möbius transformation that takes to .
Let be the group of those Möbius transformations which map the set to itself. Find all the elements of . To which standard group is isomorphic?
1.I.3F
Part IA, 2006 commentLet for . What does it mean to say that the infinite series converges to some value ? Let for all . Show that if converges to some value , then the sequence whose -th term is
converges to some value as . Is it always true that ? Give an example where converges but does not.
1.I.4D
Part IA, 2006 commentLet and be power series in the complex plane with radii of convergence and respectively. Show that if then has radius of convergence . [Any results on absolute convergence that you use should be clearly stated.]
1.II.9E
Part IA, 2006 commentState and prove the Intermediate Value Theorem.
Suppose that the function is differentiable everywhere in some open interval containing , and that . By considering the functions and defined by
and
or otherwise, show that there is a subinterval such that
Deduce that there exists with . [You may assume the Mean Value Theorem.]
1.II.10E
Part IA, 2006 commentProve that if the function is infinitely differentiable on an interval containing , then for any and any positive integer we may expand in the form
where the remainder term should be specified explicitly in terms of .
Let be a nonzero polynomial in , and let be the real function defined by
Show that is differentiable everywhere and that
where . Deduce that is infinitely differentiable, but that there exist arbitrarily small values of for which the remainder term in the Taylor expansion of about 0 does not tend to 0 as .
1.II.11F
Part IA, 2006 commentConsider a sequence of real numbers. What does it mean to say that as ? What does it mean to say that as ? What does it mean to say that as ? Show that for every sequence of real numbers there exists a subsequence which converges to a value in . [You may use the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem provided it is clearly stated.]
Give an example of a bounded sequence which is not convergent, but for which
1.II.12D
Part IA, 2006 commentLet and be Riemann integrable functions on . Show that is Riemann integrable.
Let be a Riemann integrable function on and set . Show that and are Riemann integrable.
Let be a function on such that is Riemann integrable. Is it true that is Riemann integrable? Justify your answer.
Show that if and are Riemann integrable on , then so is . Suppose now is a sequence of Riemann integrable functions on and ; is it true that is Riemann integrable? Justify your answer.
2.I.1B
Part IA, 2006 commentSolve the initial value problem
and sketch the phase portrait. Describe the behaviour as and as of solutions with initial value satisfying .
2.I.2B
Part IA, 2006 commentConsider the first order system
to be solved for , where is an matrix, and . Show that if is not an eigenvalue of there is a solution of the form . For , given
find this solution.
1.II.5C
Part IA, 2006 commentProve the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality,
for two vectors . Under what condition does equality hold?
Consider a pyramid in with vertices at the origin and at , where , and so on. The "base" of the pyramid is the dimensional object specified by for .
Find the point in equidistant from each vertex of and find the length of is the centroid of .)
Show, using the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, that this is the closest point in to the origin .
Calculate the angle between and any edge of the pyramid connected to . What happens to this angle and to the length of as tends to infinity?
2.II.5B
Part IA, 2006 commentFind the general solution of the system
2.II.6B
Part IA, 2006 comment(i) Consider the equation
and, using the change of variables , show that it can be transformed into an equation of the form
where and you should determine .
(ii) Let be the Heaviside function. Find the general continuously differentiable solution of the equation
(iii) Using (i) and (ii), find a continuously differentiable solution of
such that as and as
2.II.7B
Part IA, 2006 commentLet be continuous functions and let and be, respectively, the solutions of the initial value problems
If is any continuous function show that the solution of
where is the Wronskian. Use this method to find such that
2.II.8B
Part IA, 2006 commentObtain a power series solution of the problem
[You need not find the general power series solution.]
Let be defined recursively as follows: . Given , define to be the solution of
By calculating , or otherwise, obtain and prove a general formula for . Comment on the relation to the power series solution obtained previously.
4.I.3C
Part IA, 2006 commentA car is at rest on a horizontal surface. The engine is switched on and suddenly sets the wheels spinning at a constant angular velocity . The wheels have radius and the coefficient of friction between the ground and the surface of the wheels is . Calculate the time when the wheels start rolling without slipping. If the car is started on an upward slope in a similar manner, explain whether is increased or decreased relative to the case where the car starts on a horizontal surface.
4.I.4C
Part IA, 2006 commentFor the dynamical system
find the stable and unstable fixed points and the equation determining the separatrix. Sketch the phase diagram. If the system starts on the separatrix at , write down an integral determining the time taken for the velocity to reach zero. Show that the integral is infinite.
4.II.9C
Part IA, 2006 commentA motorcycle of mass moves on a bowl-shaped surface specified by its height where is the radius in cylindrical polar coordinates . The torque exerted by the motorcycle engine on the rear wheel results in a force pushing the motorcycle forward. Assuming is directed along the motorcycle's velocity and that the motorcycle's vertical velocity and acceleration are small, show that the motion is described by
where dots denote time derivatives, and is the acceleration due to gravity.
The motorcycle rider can adjust to produce the desired trajectory. If the rider wants to move on a curve , show that must obey
Now assume that , with a constant, and with a positive constant, and so that the desired trajectory is a spiral curve. Assuming that tends to infinity as tends to infinity, show that tends to and tends to as tends to infinity.
4.II.10C
Part IA, 2006 commentA particle of mass bounces back and forth between two walls of mass moving towards each other in one dimension. The walls are separated by a distance . The wall on the left has velocity and the wall on the right has velocity . The particle has speed . Friction is negligible and the particle-wall collisions are elastic.
Consider a collision between the particle and the wall on the right. Show that the centre-of-mass velocity of the particle-wall system is . Calculate the particle's speed following the collision.
Assume that the particle is much lighter than the walls, i.e., . Show that the particle's speed increases by approximately every time it collides with a wall.
Assume also that (so that particle-wall collisions are frequent) and that the velocities of the two walls remain nearly equal and opposite. Show that in a time interval , over which the change in is negligible, the wall separation changes by . Show that the number of particle-wall collisions during is approximately and that the particle's speed increases by during this time interval.
Hence show that under the given conditions the particle speed is approximately proportional to .
4.II.11C
Part IA, 2006 commentTwo light, rigid rods of length have a mass attached to each end. Both are free to move in two dimensions. The two rods are placed so that their two ends are located at , and respectively, where is positive. They are set in motion with no rotation, with centre-of-mass velocities and , so that the lower mass on the first rod collides head on with the upper mass on the second rod at the origin . [You may assume that the impulse is directed along the -axis.]
Assuming the collision is elastic, calculate the centre of-mass velocity and the angular velocity of each rod immediately after the collision.
Assuming a coefficient of restitution , compute and for each rod after the collision.
4.II.12C
Part IA, 2006 commentA particle of mass and charge moves in a time-dependent magnetic field .
Write down the equations of motion governing the particle's and coordinates.
Show that the speed of the particle in the plane, , is a constant.
Show that the general solution of the equations of motion is
and interpret each of the six constants of integration, and . [Hint: Solve the equations for the particle's velocity in cylindrical polars.]
Let , where is a positive constant. Assuming that and , calculate the position of the particle in the limit (you may assume this limit exists). [Hint: You may use the results
1.II.6C
Part IA, 2006 commentGiven a vector , write down the vector obtained by rotating through an angle .
Given a unit vector , any vector may be written as where is parallel to and is perpendicular to . Write down explicit formulae for and , in terms of and . Hence, or otherwise, show that the linear map
describes a rotation about through an angle , in the positive sense defined by the right hand rule.
Write equation in matrix form, . Show that the trace .
Given the rotation matrix
where , find the two pairs , with , giving rise to . Explain why both represent the same rotation.
4.I.1E
Part IA, 2006 commentExplain what is meant by a prime number.
By considering numbers of the form , show that there are infinitely many prime numbers of the form .
By considering numbers of the form , show that there are infinitely many prime numbers of the form . [You may assume the result that, for a prime , the congruence is soluble only if
4.I.2E
Part IA, 2006 commentDefine the binomial coefficient and prove that
Show also that if is prime then is divisible by for .
Deduce that if and then
4.II.5E
Part IA, 2006 commentExplain what is meant by an equivalence relation on a set .
If and are two equivalence relations on the same set , we define
there exists such that and
Show that the following conditions are equivalent:
(i) is a symmetric relation on ;
(ii) is a transitive relation on ;
(iii) ;
(iv) is the unique smallest equivalence relation on containing both and .
Show also that these conditions hold if and and are the relations of congruence modulo and modulo , for some positive integers and .
4.II.6E
Part IA, 2006 commentState and prove the Inclusion-Exclusion Principle.
A permutation of is called a derangement if for every . Use the Inclusion-Exclusion Principle to find a formula for the number of derangements of . Show also that ! converges to as .
4.II.7E
Part IA, 2006 commentState and prove Fermat's Little Theorem.
An odd number is called a Carmichael number if it is not prime, but every positive integer satisfies . Show that a Carmichael number cannot be divisible by the square of a prime. Show also that a product of two distinct odd primes cannot be a Carmichael number, and that a product of three distinct odd primes is a Carmichael number if and only if divides divides and divides . Deduce that 1729 is a Carmichael number.
[You may assume the result that, for any prime , there exists a number g prime to such that the congruence holds only when is a multiple of . The prime factors of 1729 are 7,13 and 19.]
4.II.8E
Part IA, 2006 commentExplain what it means for a set to be countable. Prove that a countable union of countable sets is countable, and that the set of all subsets of is uncountable.
A function is said to be increasing if whenever , and decreasing if whenever . Show that the set of all increasing functions is uncountable, but that the set of decreasing functions is countable.
[Standard results on countability, other than those you are asked to prove, may be assumed.]
2.I.3F
Part IA, 2006 commentWhat is a convex function? State Jensen's inequality for a convex function of a random variable which takes finitely many values.
Let . By using Jensen's inequality, or otherwise, find the smallest constant so that
[You may assume that is convex for .]
2.I.4F
Part IA, 2006 commentLet be a fixed positive integer and a discrete random variable with values in . Define the probability generating function of . Express the mean of in terms of its probability generating function. The Dirichlet probability generating function of is defined as
Express the mean of and the mean of in terms of .
2.II.9F
Part IA, 2006 commentSuppose that a population evolves in generations. Let be the number of members in the -th generation and . Each member of the -th generation gives birth to a family, possibly empty, of members of the -th generation; the size of this family is a random variable and we assume that the family sizes of all individuals form a collection of independent identically distributed random variables with the same generating function .
Let be the generating function of . State and prove a formula for in terms of . Use this to compute the variance of .
Now consider the total number of individuals in the first generations; this number is a random variable and we write for its generating function. Find a formula that expresses in terms of and .
2.II.10F
Part IA, 2006 commentLet be independent random variables with values in and the same probability density . Let . Compute the joint probability density of and the marginal densities of and respectively. Are and independent?
1.II.7B
Part IA, 2006 comment(i) Let be unit vectors in . Write the transformation on vectors
in matrix form as for a matrix . Find the eigenvalues in the two cases (a) when , and (b) when are parallel.
(ii) Let be the set of complex hermitian matrices with trace zero. Show that if there is a unique vector such that
Show that if is a unitary matrix, the transformation
maps to , and that if , then where means ordinary Euclidean length. [Hint: Consider determinants.]
2.II.11F
Part IA, 2006 commentA normal deck of playing cards contains 52 cards, four each with face values in the set . Suppose the deck is well shuffled so that each arrangement is equally likely. Write down the probability that the top and bottom cards have the same face value.
Consider the following algorithm for shuffling:
S1: Permute the deck randomly so that each arrangement is equally likely.
S2: If the top and bottom cards do not have the same face value, toss a biased coin that comes up heads with probability and go back to step if head turns up. Otherwise stop.
All coin tosses and all permutations are assumed to be independent. When the algorithm stops, let and denote the respective face values of the top and bottom cards and compute the probability that . Write down the probability that for some and the probability that for some . What value of will make and independent random variables? Justify your answer.
2.II.12F
Part IA, 2006 commentLet and define
Find such that is a probability density function. Let be a sequence of independent, identically distributed random variables, each having with the correct choice of as probability density. Compute the probability density function of . [You may use the identity
valid for all and .]
Deduce the probability density function of
Explain why your result does not contradict the weak law of large numbers.
3.I.3A
Part IA, 2006 commentConsider the vector field and let be the surface of a unit cube with one corner at , another corner at and aligned with edges along the -, - and -axes. Use the divergence theorem to evaluate
Verify your result by calculating the integral directly.
3.I.4A
Part IA, 2006 commentUse suffix notation in Cartesian coordinates to establish the following two identities for the vector field :
3.II.9A
Part IA, 2006 commentEvaluate the line integral
with and constants, along each of the following paths between the points and :
(i) the straight line between and ;
(ii) the -axis from to the origin followed by the -axis to ;
(iii) anti-clockwise from to around the circular path centred at the origin .
You should obtain the same answer for the three paths when . Show that when , the integral takes the same value along any path between and .
3.II.10A
Part IA, 2006 commentState Stokes' theorem for a vector field .
By applying Stokes' theorem to the vector field , where is an arbitrary constant vector in and is a scalar field defined on a surface bounded by a curve , show that
For the vector field in Cartesian coordinates, evaluate the line integral
around the boundary of the quadrant of the unit circle lying between the - and axes, that is, along the straight line from to , then the circular arc from to and finally the straight line from back to .
3.II.11A
Part IA, 2006 commentIn a region of bounded by a closed surface , suppose that and are both solutions of , satisfying boundary conditions on given by on , where is a given function. Prove that .
In show that
is a solution of , for any constants and . Hence, or otherwise, find a solution in the region and which satisfies:
where is a real constant and is an integer.
3.II.12A
Part IA, 2006 commentDefine what is meant by an isotropic tensor. By considering a rotation of a second rank isotropic tensor by about the -axis, show that its components must satisfy and . Now consider a second and different rotation to show that must be a multiple of the Kronecker delta, .
Suppose that a homogeneous but anisotropic crystal has the conductivity tensor
where are real constants and the are the components of a constant unit vector . The electric current density is then given in components by
where are the components of the electric field . Show that
(i) if and , then there is a plane such that if lies in this plane, then and must be parallel, and
(ii) if and , then implies .
If , find the value of such that
1.II.8A
Part IA, 2006 comment(i) State de Moivre's theorem. Use it to express as a polynomial in .
(ii) Find the two fixed points of the Möbius transformation
that is, find the two values of for which .
Given that and , show that a general Möbius transformation
has two fixed points given by
where are the square roots of .
Show that such a transformation can be expressed in the form
where is a constant that you should determine.
3.I.1D
Part IA, 2006 commentGive an example of a real matrix with eigenvalues . Prove or give a counterexample to the following statements:
(i) any such is diagonalisable over ;
(ii) any such is orthogonal;
(iii) any such is diagonalisable over .
3.I.2D
Part IA, 2006 commentShow that if and are subgroups of a group , then is also a subgroup of . Show also that if and have orders and respectively, where and are coprime, then contains only the identity element of . [You may use Lagrange's theorem provided it is clearly stated.]
3.II.5D
Part IA, 2006 commentLet be a group and let be a non-empty subset of . Show that
is a subgroup of .
Show that given by
defines an action of on itself.
Suppose is finite, let be the orbits of the action and let for . Using the Orbit-Stabilizer Theorem, or otherwise, show that
where the sum runs over all values of such that .
Let be a finite group of order , where is a prime and is a positive integer. Show that contains more than one element.
3.II.6D
Part IA, 2006 commentLet be a homomorphism between two groups and . Show that the image of , is a subgroup of ; show also that the kernel of , is a normal subgroup of .
Show that is isomorphic to .
Let be the group of real orthogonal matrices and let be the set of orthogonal matrices with determinant 1 . Show that is a normal subgroup of and that is isomorphic to the cyclic group of order
Give an example of a homomorphism from to with kernel of order