Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/ib/paper-4/5a/ii/solution

This subpart is also present in the original PDF but missing from the local TeX. Put and . Multiply the Legendre differential equation for by , multiply the equation for by , and subtract. The product rule gives
Integrating from to , the boundary term vanishes: , and the Legendre polynomials and their derivatives are finite there. For distinct nonnegative integers , . Thus the Orthogonality of Legendre polynomials is
The vanishing coefficient at the endpoints causes no difficulty here because the solutions are polynomials.

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