Part IA, {{ year }}
Part IA 2021
Paper 1, Section I, F
Part IA, 2021 commentState and prove the alternating series test. Hence show that the series converges. Show also that
Paper 1, Section I, F
Part IA, 2021 commentState and prove the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem.
Consider a bounded sequence . Prove that if every convergent subsequence of converges to the same limit then converges to .
Paper 2, Section II, A
Part IA, 2021 commentThe function takes values in the interval and satisfies the differential equation
where and are positive constants.
Let . Express in terms of a pair of first order differential equations in . Show that if then there are three fixed points in the region
Classify all the fixed points of the system in the case . Sketch the phase portrait in the case and .
Comment briefly on the case when .
Paper 2, Section II, A
Part IA, 2021 commentFor an matrix , define the matrix exponential by
where , with being the identity matrix. [You may assume that for real numbers and you do not need to consider issues of convergence.] Show that
Deduce that the unique solution to the initial value problem
is .
Let and be vectors of length and a real matrix. By considering a suitable integrating factor, show that the unique solution to
is given by
Hence, or otherwise, solve the system of differential equations when
[Hint: Compute and show that
Paper 4, Section I, C
Part IA, 2021 commentA trolley travels with initial speed along a frictionless, horizontal, linear track. It slows down by ejecting gas in the direction of motion. The gas is emitted at a constant mass ejection rate and with constant speed relative to the trolley. The trolley and its supply of gas initially have a combined mass of . How much time is spent ejecting gas before the trolley stops? [Assume that the trolley carries sufficient gas.]
Paper 4, Section I, C
Part IA, 2021 commentA rigid body composed of particles with positions , and masses , rotates about the -axis with constant angular speed . Show that the body's kinetic energy is , where you should give an expression for the moment of inertia in terms of the particle masses and positions.
Consider a solid cuboid of uniform density, mass , and dimensions . Choose coordinate axes so that the cuboid is described by the points with , and . In terms of , , and , find the cuboid's moment of inertia for rotations about the -axis.
Paper 4, Section II, C
Part IA, 2021 commentA particle of mass follows a one-dimensional trajectory in the presence of a variable force . Write down an expression for the work done by this force as the particle moves from to . Assuming that this is the only force acting on the particle, show that the work done by the force is equal to the change in the particle's kinetic energy.
What does it mean if a force is said to be conservative?
A particle moves in a force field given by
where and are positive constants. The particle starts at the origin with initial velocity . Show that, as the particle's position increases from to larger , the particle's velocity at position is given by
where you should determine . What determines whether the particle will escape to infinity or oscillate about the origin? Sketch versus for each of these cases, carefully identifying any significant velocities or positions.
In the case of oscillatory motion, find the period of oscillation in terms of , and . [Hint: You may use the fact that
for .]
Paper 4, Section II, 10C
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) A mass is acted upon by a central force
where is a positive constant and is the displacement of the mass from the origin. Show that the angular momentum and energy of the mass are conserved.
(b) Working in plane polar coordinates , or otherwise, show that the distance between the mass and the origin obeys the following differential equation
where is the angular momentum per unit mass.
(c) A satellite is initially in a circular orbit of radius and experiences the force described above. At and time , the satellite emits a short rocket burst putting it on an elliptical orbit with its closest distance to the centre and farthest distance . When and the time is , the satellite reaches the farthest distance and a second short rocket burst puts the rocket on a circular orbit of radius . (See figure.) [Assume that the duration of the rocket bursts is negligible.]
(i) Show that the satellite's angular momentum per unit mass while in the elliptical orbit is
where is a number you should determine.
(ii) What is the change in speed as a result of the rocket burst at time ? And what is the change in speed at ?
(iii) Given that the elliptical orbit can be described by
where is the eccentricity of the orbit, find in terms of , and . [Hint: The area of an ellipse is equal to , where and b are its semi-major and semi-minor axes; these are related to the eccentricity by
Paper 4, Section II, C
Part IA, 2021 commentConsider an inertial frame of reference and a frame of reference which is rotating with constant angular velocity relative to . Assume that the two frames have a common origin .
Let be any vector. Explain why the derivative of in frame is related to its derivative in by the following equation
[Hint: It may be useful to use Cartesian basis vectors in both frames.]
Let be the position vector of a particle, measured from . Derive the expression relating the particle's acceleration as observed in , to the acceleration observed in , written in terms of and
A small bead of mass is threaded on a smooth, rigid, circular wire of radius . At any given instant, the wire hangs in a vertical plane with respect to a downward gravitational acceleration . The wire is rotating with constant angular velocity about its vertical diameter. Let be the angle between the downward vertical and the radial line going from the centre of the hoop to the bead.
(i) Show that satisfies the following equation of motion
(ii) Find any equilibrium angles and determine their stability.
(iii) Find the force of the wire on the bead as a function of and .
Paper 4, Section II, C
Part IA, 2021 commentWrite down the expression for the momentum of a particle of rest mass , moving with velocity where is near the speed of light . Write down the corresponding 4-momentum.
Such a particle experiences a force . Why is the following expression for the particle's acceleration,
not generally correct? Show that the force can be written as follows
Invert this expression to find the particle's acceleration as the sum of two vectors, one parallel to and one parallel to .
A particle with rest mass and charge is in the presence of a constant electric field which exerts a force on the particle. If the particle is at rest at , its motion will be in the direction of for . Determine the particle's speed for . How does the velocity behave as ?
[Hint: You may find that trigonometric substitution is helpful in evaluating an integral.]
Paper 3 , Section I, D
Part IA, 2021 commentLet be a finite group and denote the centre of by . Prove that if the quotient group is cyclic then is abelian. Does there exist a group such that (i) ? (ii) ?
Justify your answers.
Paper 3, Section I, D
Part IA, 2021 commentLet and be elements of a group . What does it mean to say and are conjugate in ? Prove that if two elements in a group are conjugate then they have the same order.
Define the Möbius group . Prove that if are conjugate they have the same number of fixed points. Quoting clearly any results you use, show that any nontrivial element of of finite order has precisely 2 fixed points.
Paper 1, Section II, F
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) State the intermediate value theorem. Show that if is a continuous bijection and then either or . Deduce that is either strictly increasing or strictly decreasing.
(b) Let and be functions. Which of the following statements are true, and which can be false? Give a proof or counterexample as appropriate.
(i) If and are continuous then is continuous.
(ii) If is strictly increasing and is continuous then is continuous.
(iii) If is continuous and a bijection then is continuous.
(iv) If is differentiable and a bijection then is differentiable.
Paper 3, Section II, D
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) Let be an element of a finite group . Define the order of and the order of . State and prove Lagrange's theorem. Deduce that the order of divides the order of .
(b) If is a group of order , and is a divisor of where , is it always true that must contain an element of order ? Justify your answer.
(c) Denote the cyclic group of order by .
(i) Prove that if and are coprime then the direct product is cyclic.
(ii) Show that if a finite group has all non-identity elements of order 2 , then is isomorphic to . [The direct product theorem may be used without proof.]
(d) Let be a finite group and a subgroup of .
(i) Let be an element of order in . If is the least positive integer such that , show that divides .
(ii) Suppose further that has index . If , show that for some such that . Is it always the case that the least positive such is a factor of ? Justify your answer.
Paper 3, Section II, D
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) Let be a finite group acting on a set . For , define the orbit and the stabiliser of . Show that is a subgroup of . State and prove the orbit-stabiliser theorem.
(b) Let be integers. Let , the symmetric group of degree , and be the set of all ordered -tuples with . Then acts on , where the action is defined by for and . For , determine and and verify that the orbit-stabiliser theorem holds in this case.
(c) We say that acts doubly transitively on if, whenever and are elements of with and , there exists some such that and .
Assume that is a finite group that acts doubly transitively on , and let . Show that if is a subgroup of that properly contains that is, but then the action of on is transitive. Deduce that .
Paper 3, Section II,
Part IA, 2021 commentLet be a finite group of order . Show that is isomorphic to a subgroup of , the symmetric group of degree . Furthermore show that this isomorphism can be chosen so that any nontrivial element of has no fixed points.
Suppose is even. Prove that contains an element of order 2 .
What does it mean for an element of to be odd? Suppose is a subgroup of for some , and contains an odd element. Prove that precisely half of the elements of are odd.
Now suppose for some positive integer . Prove that is not simple. [Hint: Consider the sign of an element of order 2.]
Can a nonabelian group of even order be simple?
Paper 3, Section II, D
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) Let be an abelian group (not necessarily finite). We define the generalised dihedral group to be the set of pairs
with multiplication given by
The identity is and the inverse of is . You may assume that this multiplication defines a group operation on .
(i) Identify with the set of all pairs in which . Show that is a subgroup of . By considering the index of in , or otherwise, show that is a normal subgroup of .
(ii) Show that every element of not in has order 2 . Show that is abelian if and only if for all . If is non-abelian, what is the centre of Justify your answer.
(b) Let denote the group of orthogonal matrices. Show that all elements of have determinant 1 or . Show that every element of is a rotation. Let . Show that decomposes as a union .
[You may assume standard properties of determinants.]
(c) Let be the (abelian) group , with multiplication of complex numbers as the group operation. Write down, without proof, isomorphisms where denotes the additive group of real numbers and the subgroup of integers. Deduce that , the generalised dihedral group defined in part (a).
Paper 4 , Section I, E
Part IA, 2021 commentConsider functions and . Which of the following statements are always true, and which can be false? Give proofs or counterexamples as appropriate.
(i) If is surjective then is surjective.
(ii) If is injective then is injective.
(iii) If is injective then is injective.
If and with , and is the identity on , then how many possibilities are there for the pair of functions and ?
Paper 4, Section I,
Part IA, 2021 commentThe Fibonacci numbers are defined by . Let be the ratio of successive Fibonacci numbers.
(i) Show that . Hence prove by induction that
for all . Deduce that the sequence is monotonically decreasing.
(ii) Prove that
for all . Hence show that as .
(iii) Explain without detailed justification why the sequence has a limit.
Paper 4, Section II, E
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) Let be the set of all functions . Define by
(i) Define the binomial coefficient for . Setting when , prove from your definition that if then .
(ii) Show that if is integer-valued and , then
for some integers .
(b) State the binomial theorem. Show that
Paper 4, Section II,
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) (i) By considering Euclid's algorithm, show that the highest common factor of two positive integers and can be written in the form for suitable integers and . Find an integer solution of
Is your solution unique?
(ii) Suppose that and are coprime. Show that the simultaneous congruences
have the same set of solutions as for some . Hence solve (i.e. find all solutions of) the simultaneous congruences
(b) State the inclusion-exclusion principle.
For integers , denote by the number of ordered r-tuples of integers satisfying for and such that the greatest common divisor of is 1 . Show that
where the product is over all prime numbers dividing .
Paper 4, Section II,
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) Prove that every real number can be written in the form where is a strictly increasing sequence of positive integers.
Are such expressions unique?
(b) Let be a root of , where . Suppose that has no rational roots, except possibly .
(i) Show that if then
where is a constant depending only on .
(ii) Deduce that if with and then
(c) Prove that is transcendental.
(d) Let and be transcendental numbers. What of the following statements are always true and which can be false? Briefly justify your answers.
(i) is transcendental.
(ii) is transcendental for every .
Paper 4, Section II, 8E
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) Prove that a countable union of countable sets is countable.
(b) (i) Show that the set of all functions is uncountable.
(ii) Determine the countability or otherwise of each of the two sets
Justify your answers.
(c) A permutation of the natural numbers is a mapping that is bijective. Determine the countability or otherwise of each of the two sets and of permutations, justifying your answers:
(i) is the set of all permutations of such that for all sufficiently large .
(ii) is the set all permutations of such that
for each .
Paper 1, Section II, F
Part IA, 2021 commentLet be a continuous function.
(a) Let and . If is a positive continuous function, prove that
directly from the definition of the Riemann integral.
(b) Let be a continuous function. Show that
as , and deduce that
as
Paper 2, Section I, D
Part IA, 2021 commentA coin has probability of landing heads. Let be the probability that the number of heads after tosses is even. Give an expression for in terms of . Hence, or otherwise, find .
Paper 2, Section I, F
Part IA, 2021 commentLet be a continuous random variable taking values in . Let the probability density function of be
where is a constant.
Find the value of and calculate the mean, variance and median of .
[Recall that the median of is the number such that
Paper 2, Section II, 9E
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) (i) Define the conditional probability of the event given the event . Let be a partition of the sample space such that for all . Show that, if ,
(ii) There are urns, the th of which contains red balls and blue balls. Alice picks an urn (uniformly) at random and removes two balls without replacement. Find the probability that the first ball is blue, and the conditional probability that the second ball is blue, given that the first is blue. [You may assume, if you wish, that .]
(b) (i) What is meant by saying that two events and are independent? Two fair (6-sided) dice are rolled. Let be the event that the sum of the numbers shown is , and let be the event that the first die shows . For what values of and are the two events and independent?
(ii) The casino at Monte Corona features the following game: three coins each show heads with probability and tails otherwise. The first counts 10 points for a head and 2 for a tail; the second counts 4 points for both a head and a tail; and the third counts 3 points for a head and 20 for a tail. You and your opponent each choose a coin. You cannot both choose the same coin. Each of you tosses your coin once and the person with the larger score wins the jackpot. Would you prefer to be the first or the second to choose a coin?
Paper 2, Section II, 10E
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) Alanya repeatedly rolls a fair six-sided die. What is the probability that the first number she rolls is a 1 , given that she rolls a 1 before she rolls a
(b) Let be a simple symmetric random walk on the integers starting at , that is,
where is a sequence of IID random variables with . Let be the time that the walk first hits 0 .
(i) Let be a positive integer. For , calculate the probability that the walk hits 0 before it hits .
(ii) Let and let be the event that the walk hits 0 before it hits 3 . Find . Hence find .
(iii) Let and let be the event that the walk hits 0 before it hits 4 . Find .
Paper 2, Section II, D
Part IA, 2021 commentLet be the disc of radius 1 with centre at the origin . Let be a random point uniformly distributed in . Let be the polar coordinates of . Show that and are independent and find their probability density functions and .
Let and be three random points selected independently and uniformly in . Find the expected area of triangle and hence find the probability that lies in the interior of triangle .
Find the probability that and are the vertices of a convex quadrilateral.
Paper 2, Section II, 12F
Part IA, 2021 commentState and prove Chebyshev's inequality.
Let be a sequence of independent, identically distributed random variables such that
for some , and let be a continuous function.
(i) Prove that
is a polynomial function of , for any natural number .
(ii) Let . Prove that
where is the set of natural numbers such that .
(iii) Show that
as . [You may use without proof that, for any , there is a such that for all with .]
Paper 3, Section I, B
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) Prove that
where and are differentiable vector fields and is a differentiable scalar field.
(b) Find the solution of on the two-dimensional domain when
(i) is the unit disc , and on ;
(ii) is the annulus , and on both and .
[Hint: the Laplacian in plane polar coordinates is:
Paper 3, Section I, B
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) What is meant by an antisymmetric tensor of second rank? Show that if a second rank tensor is antisymmetric in one Cartesian coordinate system, it is antisymmetric in every Cartesian coordinate system.
(b) Consider the vector field and the second rank tensor defined by . Calculate the components of the antisymmetric part of and verify that it equals , where is the alternating tensor and .
Paper 3, Section II, B
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) Given a space curve , with a parameter (not necessarily arc-length), give mathematical expressions for the unit tangent, unit normal, and unit binormal vectors.
(b) Consider the closed curve given by
where .
Show that the unit tangent vector may be written as
with each sign associated with a certain range of , which you should specify.
Calculate the unit normal and the unit binormal vectors, and hence deduce that the curve lies in a plane.
(c) A closed space curve lies in a plane with unit normal . Use Stokes' theorem to prove that the planar area enclosed by is the absolute value of the line integral
Hence show that the planar area enclosed by the curve given by is .
Paper 3, Section II, B
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) By considering an appropriate double integral, show that
where .
(b) Calculate , treating as a constant, and hence show that
(c) Consider the region in the plane enclosed by , and with .
Sketch , indicating any relevant polar angles.
A surface is given by . Calculate the volume below this surface and above .
Paper 1, Section II, F
Part IA, 2021 commentLet be -times differentiable, for some .
(a) State and prove Taylor's theorem for , with the Lagrange form of the remainder. [You may assume Rolle's theorem.]
(b) Suppose that is an infinitely differentiable function such that and , and satisfying the differential equation . Prove carefully that
Paper 3, Section II, B
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) By a suitable change of variables, calculate the volume enclosed by the ellipsoid , where , and are constants.
(b) Suppose is a second rank tensor. Use the divergence theorem to show that
where is a closed surface, with unit normal , and is the volume it encloses.
[Hint: Consider for a constant vector
(c) A half-ellipsoidal membrane is described by the open surface , with . At a given instant, air flows beneath the membrane with velocity , where is a constant. The flow exerts a force on the membrane given by
where is a constant parameter.
Show the vector can be rewritten as .
Hence use to calculate the force on the membrane.
Paper 3, Section II, B
Part IA, 2021 commentFor a given charge distribution and current distribution in , the electric and magnetic fields, and , satisfy Maxwell's equations, which in suitable units, read
The Poynting vector is defined as .
(a) For a closed surface around a volume , show that
(b) Suppose and consider an electromagnetic wave
where and are positive constants. Show that these fields satisfy Maxwell's equations for appropriate , and .
Confirm the wave satisfies the integral identity by considering its propagation through a box , defined by , and .
Paper 1, Section I, C
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) Find all complex solutions to the equation .
(b) Write down an equation for the numbers which describe, in the complex plane, a circle with radius 5 centred at . Find the points on the circle at which it intersects the line passing through and .
Paper 1, Section I, B
Part IA, 2021 commentThe matrix
represents a linear map with respect to the bases
Find the matrix that represents with respect to the bases
Paper 1, Section II, C
Part IA, 2021 commentUsing the standard formula relating products of the Levi-Civita symbol to products of the Kronecker , prove
Define the scalar triple product of three vectors , and in in terms of the dot and cross product. Show that
Given a basis for which is not necessarily orthonormal, let
Show that is also a basis for . [You may assume that three linearly independent vectors in form a basis.]
The vectors are constructed from in the same way that , are constructed from . Show that
An infinite lattice consists of all points with position vectors given by
Find all points with position vectors such that is an integer for all integers , .
Paper 1, Section II, A
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) For an matrix define the characteristic polynomial and the characteristic equation.
The Cayley-Hamilton theorem states that every matrix satisfies its own characteristic equation. Verify this in the case .
(b) Define the adjugate matrix of an matrix in terms of the minors of . You may assume that
where is the identity matrix. Show that if and are non-singular matrices then
(c) Let be an arbitrary matrix. Explain why
(i) there is an such that is non-singular for ;
(ii) the entries of are polynomials in .
Using parts (i) and (ii), or otherwise, show that holds for all matrices .
(d) The characteristic polynomial of the arbitrary matrix is
By considering adj , or otherwise, show that
[You may assume the Cayley-Hamilton theorem.]
Paper 1, Section II, A
Part IA, 2021 commentLet be a real, symmetric matrix.
We say that is positive semi-definite if for all . Prove that is positive semi-definite if and only if all the eigenvalues of are non-negative. [You may quote results from the course, provided that they are clearly stated.]
We say that has a principal square root if for some symmetric, positive semi-definite matrix . If such a exists we write . Show that if is positive semi-definite then exists.
Let be a real, non-singular matrix. Show that is symmetric and positive semi-definite. Deduce that exists and is non-singular. By considering the matrix
or otherwise, show for some orthogonal matrix and a symmetric, positive semi-definite matrix .
Describe the transformation geometrically in the case .
Paper 1, Section II, 8B
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) Consider the matrix
Find the kernel of for each real value of the constant . Hence find how many solutions there are to
depending on the value of . [There is no need to find expressions for the solution(s).]
(b) Consider the reflection map defined as
where is a unit vector normal to the plane of reflection.
(i) Find the matrix which corresponds to the map in terms of the components of .
(ii) Prove that a reflection in a plane with unit normal followed by a reflection in a plane with unit normal vector (both containing the origin) is equivalent to a rotation along the line of intersection of the planes with an angle twice that between the planes.
[Hint: Choose your coordinate axes carefully.]
(iii) Briefly explain why a rotation followed by a reflection or vice-versa can never be equivalent to another rotation.
Part IA, 2021 List of Questions
Paper 1, Section II, F
Part IA, 2021 comment(a) Let be a power series with . Show that there exists (called the radius of convergence) such that the series is absolutely convergent when but is divergent when .
Suppose that the radius of convergence of the series is . For a fixed positive integer , find the radii of convergence of the following series. [You may assume that exists.] (i) . (ii) . (iii) .
(b) Suppose that there exist values of for which converges and values for which it diverges. Show that there exists a real number such that diverges whenever and converges whenever .
Determine the set of values of for which
converges.
Paper 2, Section I, A
Part IA, 2021 commentSolve the difference equation
subject to the initial conditions and .
Paper 2, Section I, A
Part IA, 2021 commentLet and be two linearly independent solutions to the differential equation
Show that the Wronskian satisfies
Deduce that if then
Given that satisfies the equation
find the solution which satisfies and .
Paper 2, Section II, A
Part IA, 2021 commentFor a linear, second order differential equation define the terms ordinary point, singular point and regular singular point.
For and consider the following differential equation
Find coefficients such that the function , where
satisfies . By making the substitution , or otherwise, find a second linearly independent solution of the form for suitable .
Suppose now that . By considering a limit of the form
or otherwise, obtain two linearly independent solutions to in terms of and derivatives thereof.
Paper 2, Section II, A
Part IA, 2021 commentBy means of the change of variables and , show that the wave equation for
is equivalent to the equation
where . Hence show that the solution to on and , subject to the initial conditions
Deduce that if and on the interval then on .
Suppose now that is a solution to the wave equation on the finite interval and obeys the boundary conditions
for all . The energy is defined by
By considering , or otherwise, show that the energy remains constant in time.