Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 7 4 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For the Riemann-Lebesgue lemma, a half-period shift of the oscillation gives a direct proof. For a nonzero integer , set . Periodicity and a change of variable show that the Fourier coefficient of at is . ThusThe right side tends to zero as by uniform continuity on the circle. Consequently .
There is nevertheless no prescribed rate shared by all continuous functions. Choose increasing positive integers with , which is possible since . DefineThe series converges absolutely and uniformly, so is continuous. Termwise integration is justified by uniform convergence, and the orthogonality of distinct exponential modes gives . HenceThis arbitrarily slow Fourier coefficient decay is compatible with the Riemann-Lebesgue lemma: for this particular function all Fourier coefficients still tend to zero, but along the selected subsequence they beat the proposed decay scale by an unbounded factor.