Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 1 22F b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
For each positive integer , apply the Stone-Weierstrass theorem on the closed ball to choose a polynomial in variables satisfyingEvery compact lies in some such ball, so the same estimate for all sufficiently large proves that uniformly.
Now suppose instead that uniformly on all of . For sufficiently large , the polynomial is bounded on , and every nonconstant real polynomial is unbounded along a suitable line. Hence is constant. A tail of the sequence is therefore one fixed polynomial plus a uniformly convergent sequence of constants, and its limit is a polynomial. The converse is immediate from the constant sequence. ThusThis is the globally uniform limit of real polynomials criterion.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 2 11F b ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
False. Take the bounded nonconstant continuous function . If polynomials converged uniformly to on , then each sufficiently late would be bounded on and hence constant. A uniform limit of constants is constant, a contradiction. More generally, the globally uniform limit of real polynomials is itself a polynomial.