Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/ia/paper-4/7d/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ia Paper 4 7D b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
For the constant monomial , the binomial theorem gives . For , the binomial coefficient identity givesThus , including by evaluation of the polynomials.
For and , substitute the preceding coefficient identity into the Bernstein polynomial sum and write . This yields the Bernstein monomial recurrenceThe coefficients are nonnegative and sum to ; and the others tend to zero. The weights in any Bernstein polynomial sum are nonnegative and sum to , so . Induction on therefore gives : the term has that limit and the other finitely many terms vanish. In fact, the same estimate in the supremum norm proves uniform convergence on .
As an independent quantitative bound, take a binomial distribution variable with parameters . Then . On , factoring the difference of powers gives ; the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality and the variance of giveFor the error is exactly zero. Finally the requested sum equals , so
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