Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2006/paper-1/6/iii/solution

Substituting into the recurrence, and into the recurrence, satisfies every coefficient equation. They give and . Thus on a positive interval not crossing a singular point,
Their Wronskian is , nonzero for , , proving independence on each ordinary interval. Both functions are analytic near , so this is an apparent regular singular point: a pole in normalized coefficients need not force a singular solution. The Wronskian can vanish at that singular point without making the two functions linearly dependent on an ordinary interval.

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