Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2007/iii/paper-41/1/a/i/solution

Suppose lies on the relative boundary of in its span . There is a nonzero with for every and . Here is a direct construction of the supporting vector. Choose points converging to , let be their nearest points in , and set . The minimization inequality for a nearest point gives on and . A subsequence of the unit vectors converges to a unit vector . Since , it has the asserted support properties.
The test-weight characterization of now gives almost surely. This random payoff cannot vanish almost surely: otherwise would annihilate every element of , hence all of , contradicting and . Therefore
This supplies the positive-terminal-payoff alternative. If has zero-dimensional span, its relative boundary is empty, so that case requires no supporting vector.

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