Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 5 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
First use independent fair signs , the Rademacher distribution convention for Bernoulli random variables in this setting. Let with uniform probability, write and . We prove the sharp Rademacher second-moment inequality by a complete finite-cube calculation.
For a function on this cube define the coordinate-flip generator on a hypercubewhere flips just coordinate . The Walsh characters form an orthonormal basis: distinct characters have expectation-zero product, and there are of them. Flipping a coordinate in changes its sign and other flips leave it unchanged, so . Expand the real function as . Since , changing variables shows that whenever is odd. ThusThis derives the even-function spectral gap on a hypercube, rather than assuming it.
At each vertex with , choose a norming functional of norm one satisfying , supplied by the Hahn-Banach theorem. For complex take real parts in the following inequalities. At a vertex with , use the zero functional. The supporting inequality for the norm givesBut , since every coefficient is a degree-one Walsh character. Summing the preceding inequalities with factor therefore proves . As ,Rearranging and taking square roots yieldsNo completeness of is needed. The constant is sharp: with two identical nonzero scalar coefficients, the absolute sum is zero with probability and twice the coefficient magnitude with probability .
If Bernoulli instead means fair variables , write and . Add an independent fair sign and apply the proved estimate to . Conditional on either sign of , has the same distribution as , by symmetry of the sign sum. Hence for , proving the same bound in that convention.
The constant is documented in the primary sharp-constant study.
Fairness is essential. For a general Bernoulli random variable with success probability , a single nonzero scalar coefficient gives . Thus the printed term cannot be read as permitting arbitrary Bernoulli probabilities.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 7 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Identify with the Boolean hypercube , with coordinatewise multiplication and normalized Haar measure assigning mass to each point. Its Bernoulli function is a Rademacher random variable. The Walsh functions on a hypercube are the Walsh characters , indexed by all subsets , including . Independence of the sign coordinates gives . There are characters, equal to the dimension of , so they form an orthonormal basis.
Flipping coordinate negates exactly when . Thus the coordinate-flip generator on a hypercube satisfiesFor , Parseval identity gives . Equivalently its Dirichlet form of a Markov chain iswhere flips coordinate .
Set and . Since , its Walsh expansion contains only sets of even size. Every nonconstant such set has , giving the even-function spectral gap on a hypercubeAt each the Hahn-Banach theorem supplies a real supporting linear functional of norm at most one with ; for a complex normed space use the real part of a complex norming functional. At take . Convexity of the norm gives . Since , sum these inequalities to get . Therefore . Combining the two bounds yields the sharp Rademacher second-moment inequalityNo smoothness of the norm is required. The constant is sharp: two equal nonzero real coefficients give modulus or with equal probabilities. This is the second-versus-first moment case of the Kahane-Khintchine inequality for arbitrary normed vector spaces.
For the complex-circle assertion, write each independent Steinhaus random variable as , where is uniform on and all quadrant signs are independent. Conditional on the angles, is a Rademacher sum with complex coefficients and . Its conditional second moment is , independent of the angles. The preceding inequality gives its conditional first moment at least . Average over the angles and square to obtain the Steinhaus first-moment lower bound