Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ib Paper 4 12G c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
First , since . Any finite linear dependence among and the has the form for a finite index set . At an index outside , its coordinate equals , so . Each remaining coordinate then gives . Therefore the set is linearly independent, and the prescribed values define a unique linear map on its algebraic span.
Take the tailsThey belong to , satisfy , and haveThus while does not approach . The map is not continuous, and part (b) also shows it is unbounded. This is a discontinuous functional detected by vanishing sequence tails, illustrating why the finite-dimensional conclusion in part (a) cannot be extended to arbitrary normed spaces.