Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2016/paper-1/8/b/solution

The Wronskian is
Suppose constants satisfy throughout the interval. Differentiating gives . At , these form the homogeneous linear system
Its determinant is nonzero by hypothesis, so . This is exactly linear independence of the two functions on the interval. No differential equation is needed for this implication; the converse for arbitrary differentiable functions would require additional hypotheses.

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