Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2004/ib/paper-2/9a/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2004 ib Paper 2 9A Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Use the weighted inner product . A monic quadratic orthogonal polynomial , orthogonal to 1 and , satisfiesThus , , and its two zeros are and . Matching the first two weighted moments givesso and . The two-node Gaussian quadrature with linear weight is thereforeFor completeness, a polynomial of degree at most three can be divided as , where both and have degree at most one. Orthogonality makes the weighted integral of zero, and this term vanishes at both nodes. The two moment equations integrate exactly. Thus the Gaussian quadrature is exact for every cubic polynomial. No two-node rule can integrate every quartic: the square of its nodal polynomial has quadrature value zero and strictly positive weighted integral.
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