Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/ii/paper-1/22h/c/solution

Let be the linear subspace of polynomials of degree at most . It has finite dimension , is proper in , and . For any norm on , the restricted norm on is equivalent to its coefficient Euclidean norm: on the coefficient unit sphere the continuous norm has a positive minimum and a finite maximum. Thus is complete. A complete subspace of a metric space is closed, since any sequence converging to an ambient limit is Cauchy and has the same limit in the subspace.
Part (b) makes each a closed set with empty interior, hence nowhere dense. If were a Banach space, this countable union would contradict the Baire category theorem. No norm makes the space of all polynomials complete.

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