Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ib Paper 3 17B b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Suppose that an -node quadrature rule were exact on . The nodal polynomial has degree , so . At every node it vanishes, and henceBut is a nonzero nonnegative polynomial, and the weight function is positive on . Thereforea contradiction. This is the degree ceiling for quadrature exactness.