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## Slick proof of Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz

It is a well known fact that there are multiple proofs for the Nullstellensatz which do not use Noether’s normalization lemma. Serge Lang’s proof(in his book) and Zariski’s proof both fall under this category. In fact, Daniel Allcock of UT Austin posted a proof which essentially builds from the edifice of Zariski’s proof(see that here). He claims that it is the simplest proof for the Nullstellensatz and frankly this is quite true considering the proof uses nothing more than basic field theory, is only one page long and just requires some familiarity with transcendence bases, and the transcendence degree. Yet in the true spirit of simplicity, T. Tao has presented a proof which uses nothing more than the extended Euclidean algorithm and “high school algebra” albeit with a lengthy case-by-case analysis(see the proof here).

Most of these proofs(except Tao’s) go about proving the ‘Weak’ Nullstellensatz and obtain the ‘Strong’ Nullstelensatz through the famous Rabinowitsch trick.

But a few days, I found something truly magnificent, a proof by Enrique Arrondo in the American Mathematical Monthly which proves the Nullstellensatz using a weaker version of Noether normalization and techniques similar to that of Tao, Ritrabata Munshi. The proof is essentially a simplification of a proof by R. Munshi.

Here, I present a special case of the normalization lemma.

### Lemma

If $F$ is an infinite field and $f \in F[x_{1},x_{2},\cdots ,x_{n}]$ is a non-constant polynomial and $n \geq 2$ whose total degree is $d$, then there exists $a_{1},a_{2},\cdots ,a_{n-1} \in F$ such that the coefficient of $x_{n}^{d}$ in

$f(x_{1}+a_{1}x_{n},x_{2}+a_{2}x_{n},\cdots ,x_{n-1}+a_{n-1}x_{n},x_{n})$

is non-zero.

### Proof:

Let $f_{d}$ represent the homogenous component of $f$ of degree $d$.So, the coefficient of $x_{d}^{n}$ in $f(x_{1}+a_{1}x_{n},x_{2}+a_{2}x_{n},\cdots,x_{n-1}+a_{n-1}x_{n},x_{n})$ is $f_{d}(a_{1},\cdots,a_{n-1},1)$. As a polynomial in $F[x_{1},\cdots,x_{n-1}]$, there is some point $(a_{1},\cdots,a_{n-1} \in F^{n-1}$ where $f_{d}(a_{1},\cdots,a_{n-1},1)$ doesn’t vanish. Choose such a point to establish the $a_{i}$ and this guarantees a non-zero coefficient of $x_{n}^{d}$.

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## Reflection groups

In order to understand the intuition underlying the theory of Coxeter groups(and Weyl groups in particular groups in particular), you can go through the theory of reflection groups which I’ll only superficially treat preceding my exposition of Coxetr systems and the associated representation theory.

Consider some Euclidean space $V$ and a vector $\alpha \in V$. A reflection associated with $\alpha$ is a linear operator which sends $\alpha$ to $-\alpha$ and point-wise fixes the orthogonal hyperplane/subspace $H_{\alpha}$.

If the reflection is $s_{\alpha}$, then it can represented as:

$s_{\alpha}(x)=x-\frac{2(x,\alpha)}{(\alpha,\alpha)}\alpha=x-2 proj_{\alpha}(x)$

Clearly $s_{\alpha}$ is an orthogonal transformation and the set of all reflections in $V$ can be recognized as the subgroup of $O(V)$(orthogonal group of $V$) consisting of elements of order 2.

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## Hopf Fibrations-Construction and Quaternion Interpretations (I)

Before I begin discussing the Hopf fibration of the 3-spbhere, one of the simplest yet deeply profound example of a non-trivial fiber bundle, I’d like to recall the definition of a fiber bundle.

Let $E,B,F$ represent the entire space, base space and the fiber respectively where $E,B$ are connected. If $f:E \mapsto B$ is a continuous surjection onto the base space, then the structure $(E,B,F,f)$ is said to be a fiber bundle if for every $x\in E$, there exists a neighborhood $U \subset B$ of $f(x)$ such that there exists a homeomorphism $\psi:f^{-1}(U) \mapsto U \times F$ such that $\psi \circ \pi_{U}=f$.

What this basically means is that locally, the fiber bundle looks like the product $B \times F$ but globally, it may have different topological properties.

A trivial fiber bundle is a fiber bundle which in which the total space is $E=B \times F$. In fact, any fiber bundle over a contractible CW Complex is trivial.

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## CW Complex Structure of Real Projective Space and Kusner’s Parametrization of Boy’s surface

The real projective space represented by $\mathbb{RP}^{n}$ is the space obtained from $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ under the equivalence relation $x \sim kx$ $\forall x \in \mathbb{R}^{n+1}$. Basically, $\mathbb{RP}^{n}$ is the set of lines which passed through the origin in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$. It can also be understood by identifying antipodal points(points which lie on opposite ends of the diameter) of a unit $n$-sphere,$S^{n}$.

One very basic yet deeply interesting example of these spaces is $\mathbb{RP}^{2}$, known as the real projective plane. While $\mathbb{RP}^{0}$ is a points and $\mathbb{RP}^{1}$ is homeomorphic to a circle with infinity, the real projective plane turns out to be far more interesting indeed. It can’t be embedded in $\mathbb{R}^{3}$ and its immersion/s such as Boy’s surface, Roman surface and Cross Cap have far stranger structures than a mere circle as in the case of $\mathbb{RP}^{2}$. In fact, I will delineate some of the calculations involved in the Kusner-Bryant 3-dimensional parametrization of Boy’s surface. It’s a little fascinating how much complexity can be added to mathematical structures upon generalization especially in the case of the projective space which I believe have a remarkably simple and ‘non-threatening’ definition.

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# Nets/Moore-Smith Sequences

Sequences are common objects in the field of topology. Often, sequences can help identify continuous functions, limit points and compact spaces in metric spaces.

Moore-Smith sequences(or nets) are essentially a generalization of the sequence for an arbitrary topological space and we can see that many foundational theorems of general topology can be stated in terms of nets.

So first, let’s recall what a partial order and direct set is:

A partial order is an order realtion $\leq$ satisfying:-

• $\alpha \leq \alpha$
• If $\alpha \leq \beta$ and $\beta \leq \alpha$, then $\alpha=\beta$.
• If $\alpha \leq \beta,\beta \leq \gamma$, then $\alpha \leq \gamma$.

A directed set $I$ is a set with a partial order relation $\leq$ such that for any $\alpha,\beta \in I$,there exists $\gamma$ such that $\alpha \leq \gamma,\beta \leq \gamma$.

It’s best to think of a directed set as a sort of analogue to an indexing set.

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## Connection between a symmetric linear transformation and the unit sphere

There is an interesting correspondence among the quadratic form of a symmetric linear transformation $T:V \mapsto V$on a real Euclidean space,the extreme values of the sphere and the eigenvectors of $T$

Let $Q(x)=(T(x),x)$ be the quadratic form associated with a symmetric linar transformation which maps $V$ into itself,then the set of elements $u$ in V satisfying $\langle u,u \rangle=1$ is called the unit sphere of $V$

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## The irrationality of e

This is the post excerpt.

The irrationality of e can be proved using the infinite series expansion.

$e=\sum_{k=0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{k!}$

Assume that e is rational.i.e $e=\frac{p}{q}$ where $p \in \mathbb{Z}$ and $q \in \mathbb{Z}-{0}$.

## Schur’s Lemma

This is a standard result that any beginner in the study of the representation theory would be aware of. I merely present restate the theorem a little(essentially I don’t) and prove it.

## Theorem:

Let $V,W$ be representations of a group $G$. If $f:V \mapsto W$ is a $G-linear$ map, then the following are true assuming that $V$ and $W$ are not isomorphic:

1)If both $V,W$ are irreducible, then $f$ is either an isomorphism or the zero map.

2)If only $V$ is irreducible, then $f$ is either injective or the zero map.

3)If only $W$ is irreducible, then $f$ is either surjective or the zero map

If $V,W$ are isomorphic as representations, then $f$ is a scalar multiplication map.

#### Proof:

Let $\rho_{V},\rho_{W}$ be the respective representations. Here, $V,W$ are vector spaces over an algebraically closed field.

We tackle the first part of the theorem.

Consider the kernel of $f$, say $Ker(f)$, which is set of all $v \in V$ such that $f(v)=0$. Since $f$ is a G-linear map, $f(g.v)=g.f(v)=0$ implies that if $v \in Ker(f)$, then $g.v \in Ker(f)$. Hence, $Ker(f)$ is stable under the action of $G$ which makes it a sub-representation. Since $V$ is irreducible, this means that either $Ker(f)$ must be zero or $f$ must be the zero map. This proves that $f$ is injective.

## Irrationality of basic trigonometric and hyperbolic functions at rational values

A few days ago, while rummaging through my shelves, I stumbled upon a book by the number theorist Ivan Niven entitled “Irrational Numbers”-a relatively unknown book in my opinion. Obscured by stationery and other paraphernalia, the edge of the book peeked out of my drawer-its cover shrouded in dust and its title almost indiscernible if not for the striking glow of morning sunlight from my large window revealing its dark red tint. I wiped off the dust and peeked into its contents.

This was one of the first ‘real’ math textbooks that I ever read in high school along with Apostol’s books on Calculus and Lang’s Linear Algebra. I distinctly remember reading it for the first time when I was 13. It was undoubtedly quite difficult at the time, considering that I had little exposure to proof-based mathematics. Though the book is rather drab in its exposition, it undoubtedly had some interesting and simple mathematical facts about irrationality which you wouldn’t naturally find anywhere else except for some old number theory papers.

One of those little mathematical gems is the irrationality of trigonometric and hyperbolic functions at rational arguments. I shall soon prove that $cos(x)$ is irrational if $x \in \mathbb{Q} \backslash \{ 0 \}$.

### Lemma 1

If $h \in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ and $f(x)=\frac{x^{n}h(x)}{n!}$ is a polynomial in $\mathbb{Q}[x]$, then $f^{(k)}(0) \in \mathbb{Z}$ for$k \in \mathbb{Z^{+}}$ and $f^{(k)}(0)$ is divisible by $n+1$ if $k \neq n$. However, it is divisible by $n+1$ at $k=n$ if $h(0)=0$.

I’ll leave the proof to the reader since its quite simple and involves nothing more than playing around with the polynomials.

### Lemma 2

Let $f \in \mathbb{R}[x]$ and define $F(x)$ as such:
$F(x)=f((r-x)^{2})$ where $r \in \mathbb{R}$
Then, $f^{(k)}(r)=0$ if $k$ is an odd integer.

Again, I’ll leave the trivialities of calculations and polynomial manipulations to the reader.

Now, to the main theorem.

### Theorem

$sin(x),cos(x),tan(x)$ are all irrational for non-trivial rational values of $x$.

#### Proof:

Let $q=\frac{a}{b}$ where $a,b \in \mathbb{Q}$. Define a function $f(x)$ as follows:

$f(x)=\frac{x^{p-1}(a-bx)^{2p}(2a-bx)^{p-1}}{(p-1)!}$

where $p$ is an odd prime.
Substituting the expression for $q$,

$f(x)=\frac{(r-x)^{2p}(r^{2}-(r-x)^{2})^{p-1}b^{3p-1}}{(p-1)!}$                              (1)

Notice how we obtained a polynomial in $(r-x)^{2}$ and of the form presented in Lemma 1. Also, observe that $f(x)>0$ for all values of $x \in \mathbb{R}$($p-1$ is even) .

The next is to obtain an upper bound for $f(x)$ when $x \in (0,r)$.