Cosine substitution for polynomial approximation ($\tilde{f}(\theta )=f(\cos \theta )$)

Cosine substitution is an isometry from continuous functions on $[-1,1]$ to even continuous $2\pi$-periodic functions. It satisfies $\omega (\tilde{f},\delta )\le \omega (f,\delta )$ because cosine is Lipschitz continuous with constant one. Even degree-at-most-$n$ trigonometric polynomials correspond exactly to algebraic polynomials via $T_j(\cos \theta )=\cos (j\theta )$. Averaging a periodic approximant with its reflection cannot increase its error against an even target, so the algebraic and periodic best errors are equal.