The endpoint boundary conditions are
The finite difference equation can be written . Set . Then , so . Summing from to gives
Using and yields , hence . Therefore
This also covers , where there are no interior equations. Uniqueness follows because the difference of two solutions has zero second finite difference, hence is linear in , and vanishes at both endpoints. This is an exact finite difference solution for constant second derivative: the method is exact at the nodes here because the centered second finite difference differentiates this quadratic polynomial exactly.