Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2011/paper-1/14/c/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2011 Paper 1 14 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-18
Fourier orthogonality isolates a coefficient. Multiplication by and integration over annihilates the constant, all cosine terms and all sine terms except the one with , whose squared integral is . Thus the corresponding coefficients on the two sides must agree for each positive integer .
Multiplication by works in the same way, while integration against the constant mode extracts . This is the uniqueness of the Fourier coefficients; it does not follow from comparing a few point values of the series.
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