Part IA, {{ year }}
Part IA 2008
1.I.1B
Part IA, 2008 commentState de Moivre's Theorem. By evaluating
or otherwise, show that
Hence show that
where is an integer in the range .
1.I.2A
Part IA, 2008 commentLet be an unitary matrix . Suppose that and are Hermitian matrices such that .
Show that
(i) and commute,
(ii) .
Find and in terms of and , and hence show that and are uniquely determined for a given .
3.II
Part IA, 2008 commentShow that every Möbius map may be expressed as a composition of maps of the form and (where and are complex numbers).
Which of the following statements are true and which are false? Justify your answers.
(i) Every Möbius map that fixes may be expressed as a composition of maps of the form and (where and are complex numbers).
(ii) Every Möbius map that fixes 0 may be expressed as a composition of maps of the form and (where is a complex number).
(iii) Every Möbius map may be expressed as a composition of maps of the form and (where is a complex number).
3.II
Part IA, 2008 commentState and prove the orbit-stabilizer theorem. Deduce that if is an element of a finite group then the order of divides the order of
Prove Cauchy's theorem, that if is a prime dividing the order of a finite group then contains an element of order .
For which positive integers does there exist a group of order in which every element (apart from the identity) has order 2?
Give an example of an infinite group in which every element (apart from the identity) has order
1.I
Part IA, 2008 commentState the ratio test for the convergence of a series.
Find all real numbers such that the series
converges.
1.I.4E
Part IA, 2008 commentLet be Riemann integrable, and for set .
Assuming that is continuous, prove that for every the function is differentiable at , with .
If we do not assume that is continuous, must it still be true that is differentiable at every ? Justify your answer.
1.II
Part IA, 2008 commentInvestigate the convergence of the series (i) (ii)
for positive real values of and .
[You may assume that for any positive real value of for sufficiently large. You may assume standard tests for convergence, provided that they are clearly stated.]
1.II.10D
Part IA, 2008 comment(a) State and prove the intermediate value theorem.
(b) An interval is a subset of with the property that if and belong to and then also belongs to . Prove that if is an interval and is a continuous function from to then is an interval.
(c) For each of the following three pairs of intervals, either exhibit a continuous function from to such that or explain briefly why no such continuous function exists: (i) ; (ii) ; (iii) .
1.II.11D
Part IA, 2008 comment(a) Let and be functions from to and suppose that both and are differentiable at the real number . Prove that the product is also differentiable at .
(b) Let be a continuous function from to and let for every . Prove that is differentiable at if and only if either or is differentiable at .
(c) Now let be any continuous function from to and let for every . Prove that is differentiable at if and only if at least one of the following two possibilities occurs:
(i) is differentiable at ;
(ii) and
1.II.12E
Part IA, 2008 commentLet be a complex power series. Prove that there exists an such that the series converges for every with and diverges for every with .
Find the value of for each of the following power series: (i) ; (ii) .
In each case, determine at which points on the circle the series converges.
2.I.1A
Part IA, 2008 commentLet be a positive constant. Find the solution to the differential equation
that satisfies and as .
2.I.2A
Part IA, 2008 commentFind the fixed points of the difference equation
Show that a stable fixed point exists when and also when .
1.II
Part IA, 2008 comment(a) Use suffix notation to prove that
Hence, or otherwise, expand (i) , (ii) .
(b) Write down the equation of the line that passes through the point a and is parallel to the unit vector .
The lines and in three dimensions pass through and respectively and are parallel to the unit vectors and respectively. Show that a necessary condition for and to intersect is
Why is this condition not sufficient?
In the case in which and are non-parallel and non-intersecting, find an expression for the shortest distance between them.
2.II.5A
Part IA, 2008 commentTwo cups of hot tea at temperatures and cool in a room at ambient constant temperature . Initially .
Cup 1 has cool milk added instantaneously at ; in contrast, cup 2 has cool milk added at a constant rate for . Briefly explain the use of the differential equations
where and are the Dirac delta and Heaviside functions respectively, and is a positive constant.
(i) Show that for
(ii) Determine the jump (discontinuity) condition for at and hence find for .
(iii) Using continuity of at show that for
(iv) Compute for and show that for
(v) Find the time , after , at which .
2.II.6A
Part IA, 2008 commentThe linear second-order differential equation
has linearly independent solutions and . Define the Wronskian of and .
Suppose that is known. Use the Wronskian to write down a first-order differential equation for . Hence express in terms of and .
Show further that satisfies the differential equation
Verify that is a solution of
Compute the Wronskian and hence determine a second, linearly independent, solution of .
2.II.7A
Part IA, 2008 commentFind the first three non-zero terms in series solutions and for the differential equation
that satisfy the boundary conditions
where and are constants.
Determine the value of such that the change of variable transforms into a differential equation with constant coefficients. Hence find the general solution of .
2.II.8A
Part IA, 2008 commentConsider the function
where is a positive constant.
Find the critical points of , assuming . Determine the type of each critical point and sketch contours of constant in the two cases (i) and (ii) .
For describe the subset of the plane on which attains its maximum value.
4.I.3B
Part IA, 2008 commentTwo particles of masses and have position vectors and at time . The particle of mass experiences a force and the particle of mass experiences a force . Show that the centre of mass moves at a constant velocity, and derive an equation of motion for the relative separation .
Now suppose that , where is a positive constant. The particles are initially at rest a distance apart. Calculate how long it takes before they collide.
4.I.4B
Part IA, 2008 commentA damped pendulum is described by the equation
where and are real positive constants. Determine the location of all the equilibrium points of the system. Classify the equilibrium points in the two cases and .
4.II.9B
Part IA, 2008 commentAn octopus of mass swims horizontally in a straight line by jet propulsion. At time the octopus is at rest, and its internal cavity contains a mass of water (so that the mass of the octopus plus water is ). It then starts to move by ejecting the water backwards at a constant rate units of mass per unit time and at a constant speed relative to itself. The speed of the octopus at time is , and the mass of the octopus plus remaining water is . The drag force exerted by the surrounding water on the octopus is , where is a positive constant.
Show that, during ejection of water, the equation of motion is
Once all the water has been ejected, at time , the octopus has attained a velocity . Use dimensional analysis to show that
where and are two dimensionless quantities and is an unknown function. Solve equation (1) to find an explicit expression for , and verify that your answer is of the form given in equation (2).
4.II.10B
Part IA, 2008 commentA body of mass moves in the gravitational field of a much larger spherical object of mass located at the origin. Starting from the equations of motion
show that:
(i) the body moves in an orbit of the form
where is the constant angular momentum per unit mass, and and are constants;
(ii) the total energy of the body is
A meteorite is moving very far from the Earth with speed , and in the absence of the effect of the Earth's gravitational field would miss the Earth by a shortest distance (measured from the Earth's centre). Show that in the subsequent motion
and
Use equation to find the distance of closest approach, and show that the meteorite will collide with the Earth if
where is the radius of the Earth.
4.II.11B
Part IA, 2008 commentAn inertial reference frame and another reference frame have a common origin , and rotates with angular velocity with respect to . Show the following:
(i) the rates of change of an arbitrary vector a in frames and are related by
(ii) the accelerations in and are related by
where is the position vector relative to .
A train of mass at latitude in the Northern hemisphere travels North with constant speed along a track which runs North-South. Find the magnitude and direction of the sideways force exerted on the train by the track.
4.II.12B
Part IA, 2008 commentA uniform solid sphere has mass and radius . Calculate the moment of inertia of the sphere about an axis through its centre.
A long hollow circular cylinder of radius (where ) is held fixed with its axis horizontal. The sphere is held initially at rest in contact with the inner surface of the cylinder at , where and is the angle between the line joining the centre of the sphere to the cylinder axis and the downward vertical, as shown in the figure.
The sphere is then released, and rolls without slipping. Show that the angular velocity of the sphere is
Show further that the time, , it takes the sphere to reach is
If, instead, the cylinder and sphere surfaces are highly polished, so that the sphere now slides without rolling, find the time, , it takes to reach .
Without further calculation, explain qualitatively how your answers for and would be affected if the solid sphere were replaced by a hollow spherical shell of the same radius and mass.
1.II.6A
Part IA, 2008 commentA real matrix with elements is said to be upper triangular if whenever . Prove that if and are upper triangular real matrices then so is the matrix product .
Consider the matrix
Show that . Write as a linear combination of and and hence compute explicitly.
For all integers (including negative integers), prove that there exist coefficients and such that
For all integers (including negative integers), show that
Hence derive a set of 3 simultaneous equations for and find their solution.
4.I.1D
Part IA, 2008 commentLet and be non-empty sets and let and be two functions. For each of the following statements, give either a brief justification or a counterexample.
(i) If is an injection and is a surjection, then is a surjection.
(ii) If is an injection and is an injection, then there exists a function such that is equal to the identity function on .
(iii) If and are subsets of then .
(iv) If and are subsets of then .
4.I.2D
Part IA, 2008 comment(a) Let be an equivalence relation on a set . What is an equivalence class of Prove that the equivalence classes of form a partition of .
(b) Let be the set of all positive integers. Let a relation be defined on by setting if and only if for some (not necessarily positive) integer . Prove that is an equivalence relation, and give an example of a set that contains precisely one element of each equivalence class.
4.II.5D
Part IA, 2008 comment(a) Define the notion of a countable set, and prove that the set is countable. Deduce that if and are countable sets then is countable, and also that a countable union of countable sets is countable.
(b) If is any set of real numbers, define to be the set of all real roots of non-zero polynomials that have coefficients in . Now suppose that is a countable set of real numbers and define a sequence by letting each be equal to . Prove that the union is countable.
(c) Deduce that there is a countable set that contains the real numbers 1 and and has the further property that if is any non-zero polynomial with coefficients in , then all real roots of belong to .
4.II.6D
Part IA, 2008 comment(a) Let and be integers with and let be their highest common factor. For any integer , prove that is a multiple of if and only if there exists an integer satisfying the equation exactly solutions to the equation that are distinct .
Deduce that the equation has a solution if and only if .
(b) Let be a prime and let be the multiplicative group of non-zero integers . An element of is called a th power if for some integer . It can be shown that has a generator: that is, an element such that every element of is a power of . Assuming this result, deduce that an element of is a th power if and only if , where is now the highest common factor of and .
(c) How many 437th powers are there mod 1013? [You may assume that 1013 is a prime number.]
4.II.7D
Part IA, 2008 comment(a) Let be a field such that the equation has no solution in . Prove that if and are elements of such that , then both and must equal 0 .
Prove that can be made into a field, with operations
and
(b) Let be a prime of the form . Prove that is not a square , and deduce that there exists a field with exactly elements.
4.II.8D
Part IA, 2008 commentLet be a positive integer. For every positive integer , define a number by the formula
Prove by induction that
for every , and hence evaluate the infinite .
Let be a sequence of integers satisfying the inequality for every . Prove that the series ! is convergent. Prove also that its limit is irrational if and only if for infinitely many and for infinitely many .
2.I.3F
Part IA, 2008 commentThere are socks in a drawer, three of which are red and the rest black. John chooses his socks by selecting two at random from the drawer and puts them on. He is three times more likely to wear socks of different colours than to wear matching red socks. Find .
For this value of , what is the probability that John wears matching black socks?
2.I.4F
Part IA, 2008 commentA standard six-sided die is thrown. Calculate the mean and variance of the number shown.
The die is thrown times. By using Chebyshev's inequality, find an such that
where is the total of the numbers shown over the throws.
2.II.9F
Part IA, 2008 commentA population evolves in generations. Let be the number of members in the th generation, with . 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 each with generating function .
Let be the generating function of . State and prove a formula for in terms of . Determine the mean of in terms of the mean of .
Suppose that has a Poisson distribution with mean . Find an expression for in terms of , where is the probability that the population becomes extinct by the th generation.
2.II.10F
Part IA, 2008 commentand play a series of games. The games are independent, and each is won by with probability and by with probability . The players stop when the number of wins by one player is three greater than the number of wins by the other player. The player with the greater number of wins is then declared overall winner.
(i) Find the probability that exactly 5 games are played.
(ii) Find the probability that is the overall winner.
1.II
Part IA, 2008 commentProve that any orthonormal vectors in form a basis for .
Let be a real symmetric matrix with orthonormal eigenvectors and corresponding eigenvalues . Obtain coefficients such that
is a solution to the equation
where is a given vector and is a given scalar that is not an eigenvalue of .
How would your answer differ if ?
Find and hence when
in the cases (i) and (ii) .
2.II.11F
Part IA, 2008 commentLet and have the bivariate normal density function
for fixed . Let . Show that and are independent variables. Hence, or otherwise, determine
2.II.12F
Part IA, 2008 commentThe discrete random variable has distribution given by
where . Determine the mean and variance of .
A fair die is rolled until all 6 scores have occurred. Find the mean and standard deviation of the number of rolls required.
[Hint:
3.I.3C
Part IA, 2008 commentA curve is given in terms of a parameter by
(i) Find the arc length of the curve between the points with and .
(ii) Find the unit tangent vector at the point with parameter , and show that the principal normal is orthogonal to the direction at each point on the curve.
3.I.4C
Part IA, 2008 commentWhat does it mean to say that transforms as a second rank tensor?
If transforms as a second rank tensor, show that transforms as a vector.
3.II.9C
Part IA, 2008 commentLet , where is the position vector and is a uniform vector field.
(i) Use the divergence theorem to evaluate the surface integral , where is the closed surface of the cube with vertices .
(ii) Show that . Show further that the scalar field given by
satisfies . Describe geometrically the surfaces of constant .
3.II.10C
Part IA, 2008 commentFind the effect of a rotation by about the -axis on the tensor
Hence show that the most general isotropic tensor of rank 2 is , where is an arbitrary scalar.
Prove that there is no non-zero isotropic vector, and write down without proof the most general isotropic tensor of rank 3 .
Deduce that if is an isotropic tensor then the following results hold, for some scalars and : (i) ; (ii) ; (iii) .
Verify these three results in the case , expressing and in terms of and .
3.II.11C
Part IA, 2008 commentLet be a volume in bounded by a closed surface .
(a) Let and be twice differentiable scalar fields such that on and in . Show that
(b) Let be the sphere . Evaluate the integral
in the cases where and are given in spherical polar coordinates by: (i) ; (ii) ; (iii) .
Comment on your results in the light of part (a).
3.II.12C
Part IA, 2008 commentLet be the closed planar region given by
(i) Evaluate by means of a suitable change of variables the integral
(ii) Let be the boundary of . Evaluate the line integral
by integrating along each section of the boundary.
(iii) Comment on your results.
1.II.8C
Part IA, 2008 commentProve that the eigenvalues of a Hermitian matrix are real and that eigenvectors corresponding to distinct eigenvalues are orthogonal (i.e. ).
Let be a real non-zero antisymmetric matrix. Show that is Hermitian. Hence show that there exists a (complex) eigenvector such , where is imaginary.
Show further that there exist real vectors and and a real number such that
Show also that has a real eigenvector such that .
Let . By considering the action of on and , show that is a rotation matrix.
3.I.1E
Part IA, 2008 commentDefine the signature of a permutation , and show that the map is a homomorphism.
Define the alternating group , and prove that it is a subgroup of . Is a normal subgroup of ? Justify your answer.
3.I.2E
Part IA, 2008 commentWhat is the orthogonal group ? What is the special orthogonal group
Show that every element of the special orthogonal group has an eigenvector with eigenvalue 1 . Is this also true for every element of the orthogonal group ? Justify your answer.
3.II
Part IA, 2008 commentFor a normal subgroup of a group , explain carefully how to make the set of (left) cosets of into a group.
For a subgroup of a group , show that the following are equivalent:
(i) is a normal subgroup of ;
(ii) there exist a group and a homomorphism such that is the kernel of .
Let be a finite group that has a proper subgroup of index (in other words, . Show that if ! then cannot be simple. [Hint: Let act on the set of left cosets of by left multiplication.]
- Part IA, 2008
commentProve that two elements of are conjugate if and only if they have the same cycle type.
Describe (without proof) a necessary and sufficient condition for a permutation to have the same conjugacy class in as it has in .
For which is conjugate (in ) to
For every , show that is conjugate to (in . Exhibit a positive integer and a such that is not conjugate to (in ).