Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ii Paper 3 21H b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Suppose for contradiction that the vector space of univariate polynomials were complete in the given norm. For , letEach is finite-dimensional and therefore closed by the fact that a finite-dimensional subspace is closed. It is a proper linear subspace of , so it has empty interior: if a linear subspace contained any open ball, translation and scalar multiplication would make it contain every vector. Hence every is a nowhere dense set.
But every polynomial has finite degree, soThis writes the supposed complete metric space as a countable union of nowhere-dense closed subsets, contradicting the Baire category theorem. Thus no norm can make complete. Equivalently, this is the countable-basis obstruction that a Banach space has uncountable Hamel dimension.