Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 61 6 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
An explicit construction gives Bernstein's lethargy theorem in the requested inequality form. SetStrict decrease makes every coefficient positive. Telescoping and the limit assumption giveThusdefines a continuous function by the Weierstrass M-test and the uniform limit theorem. Apply the positive lacunary Chebyshev series calculation. At ,For , choose so that . Its error isTherefore the function satisfiesThis explicit Chebyshev construction for Bernstein lethargy also has . It shows that continuity imposes no universal speed of convergence of best polynomial approximation, even though convergence itself follows from the Weierstrass approximation theorem.