Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ia Paper 4 7D a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
For , use the binomial coefficient identity . It reduces the left side to . Put . Then , and the binomial theorem givesThus the required coefficients areFor the sum has the single coefficient . For , the power denotes the constant monomial .
The original PDF allows , but its displayed ratio is then . Literally that expression is undefined. The meaningful endpoint identity is obtained before normalization:This polynomial identity is valid at , giving on both sides. The normalized formula and the Bernstein monomial recurrence below are used only for .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ia Paper 4 7D b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
For the constant monomial , the binomial theorem gives . For , the binomial coefficient identity givesThus , including by evaluation of the polynomials.
For and , substitute the preceding coefficient identity into the Bernstein polynomial sum and write . This yields the Bernstein monomial recurrenceThe coefficients are nonnegative and sum to ; and the others tend to zero. The weights in any Bernstein polynomial sum are nonnegative and sum to , so . Induction on therefore gives : the term has that limit and the other finitely many terms vanish. In fact, the same estimate in the supremum norm proves uniform convergence on .
As an independent quantitative bound, take a binomial distribution variable with parameters . Then . On , factoring the difference of powers gives ; the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality and the variance of giveFor the error is exactly zero. Finally the requested sum equals , so