Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 327 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The test-function space is . Its topology is the strict inductive limit topology of the spaces of smooth functions supported in a fixed compact set , each with the seminorms . In particular, a sequence converges in precisely when its supports lie in one compact set and all its derivatives converge uniformly. The indices use multi-index notation.
The distribution space consists of continuous complex-linear forms on . Equivalently, for every compact there are and an integer such thatWe use distributional convergence: means for every . The pairings are bilinear, with no complex conjugation. A test function is identified with its regular distribution .
For a distribution and a test function , their smoothing convolution with a test function isIt is a smooth function, with . Indeed, for in a compact neighborhood all translated tests have support in one compact set, and their difference quotients converge in the space of test functions. Notice that need not be compactly supported.
Choose a nonnegative mollifier with , and write . If , thenThe right-hand test tends to in : its supports lie in for , and every derivative converges uniformly by the approximate-identity argument. Thus the smooth regularizations converge to as distributions.
To obtain actual compactly supported approximants, choose a smooth cutoff function equal to one on and supported in , and setFor each fixed test function , the cutoff is identically one on its support once is large. Hence . This proves is dense in , and in fact establishes the density of test functions in distributions and gives a convergent approximating sequence for each distribution. The expanding cutoff is essential when has noncompact support of a distribution.
For the radial limit, take a test function and introduce in polar coordinates. The Jacobian givesWhen is supported away from the origin, vanishes near and extends to a compactly supported smooth function on the whole line. The folded sine approximation to a Dirac delta is exposed by setting : integration by parts givesby the Riemann-Lebesgue lemma. ThereforeThis surface delta distribution is arclength measure on the unit circle. By the level-set normalization of a surface delta, it is : the factor two cancels the gradient magnitude on the circle. It is not twice arclength measure.
For a test function that can meet the origin, the endpoint cannot be discarded. Now . Its right derivative is integrable, with from differentiated Taylor expansion: the angular average cancels odd Taylor terms, so near . Applying integration by parts separately on the negative and positive intervals givesThe last two integrals tend to zero by the Riemann-Lebesgue lemma. Thus the radial quadratic oscillation defect in two dimensions gives the stronger oscillating point-mass defect formulaChoose supported in with . Its pairing is , which does not converge. For completeness, if had a limit , the recurrence would force , whereas the even subsequence identity would then force . Consequently there is no limit in .
The stable unit-circle arclength contribution and the oscillating point-mass coefficient at the origin
. Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 327 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use the Fourier transform convention , with inverse factor . The Paley–Wiener–Schwartz theorem can be stated with sharp convex support: for a nonempty compact convex set , let its support function be . Then is the Fourier transform of a unique distribution supported in if and only if it is entire andfor some and nonnegative integer . For , this is the familiar bound . Allowing some characterizes all compactly supported distributions. Here the extension of the Fourier transform is , interpreted with a cutoff equal to one near the support of a distribution.
First suppose . Fix one smooth cutoff function equal to one near . Pairing the resulting compactly supported exponential with shows that is an entire function: differentiation with respect to inserts , and the power series converges in the test-function seminorms uniformly on compact subsets of .
To keep the exponential type exactly , rather than that of a fixed larger neighborhood, use a shrinking-cutoff exponential-type estimate. There are cutoffs equal to one on , supported in , and satisfying for . One construction convolves the indicator of with a unit-mass mollifier supported in . Continuity of on a fixed compact neighborhood gives a finite order of a distribution there. By the product rule,Taking proves the required bound with , since the extra exponential factor is at most . The value of the pairing is independent of the chosen cutoff because all cutoffs agree near . Thus the forward direction has the exact asserted support function, without an unproved estimate on derivatives restricted only to .
Conversely, suppose the entire has the stated bound. Its restriction to real frequency has polynomial growth, so define a tempered distribution byThe Schwartz space decay makes this integral absolutely convergent and continuous; by Fourier inversion, on real frequency. It remains to prove the support assertion by mollifier regularization for contour recovery of support.
Choose a nonnegative unit-mass mollifier supported in , and setOn real frequency, decays faster than any polynomial after enough applications of integration by parts to ; hence is smooth, by differentiation under the integral sign. More generally, for every integer there is such thatTo obtain this estimate, write the transform of as the real-frequency transform of and integrate by parts; each derivative introduces at most one factor of .
Fix a unit vector and take . A contour-shift proof of the Paley–Wiener–Schwartz theorem moves the inverse-transform contour to :Here is a justification of the shift. Rotate coordinates so is the first coordinate direction, apply the Cauchy integral theorem on a rectangle in the first complex variable, and integrate over the other real variables. For fixed , the vertical sides at real part have an integrated bound proportional to , and hence vanish as . The same decay bounds give absolute convergence on the horizontal sides. No contour shift of an unregularized polynomially growing integral is needed.
Positive homogeneity of the support function now givesIf , the Hahn-Banach separation theorem supplies a unit vector with . Letting proves . Therefore and .
Since and its modulus is at most one on real frequency, the dominated convergence theorem in the formula for gives as tempered distributions, and thus as distributions. A test function supported outside has positive distance from , so its pairing with is zero for all sufficiently small . This proves . The Fourier transform of a compactly supported distribution constructed in the forward direction equals on ; applying the one-variable identity theorem successively in each coordinate extends the equality to . Injectivity of the Fourier transform of a tempered distribution proves uniqueness and completes both directions.
For the independence application, put and . The ball version of the Paley–Wiener–Schwartz theorem supplies a nonzero distribution supported in with . By the Translation property of the Fourier transform,where . Distinct integer points are at least distance one apart. For distinct positive indices , the largest possible radius sum is . Thus these closed balls, and hence the distribution supports, are pairwise disjoint.
If , injectivity of the Fourier transform gives . For each , choose a smooth cutoff function equal to one near its ball and zero near all other balls. Multiplying the distributional identity by this cutoff isolates . Since is not identically zero, , so . Consequently are linearly independent over . This Fourier independence from disjoint distribution supports uses the quantitative exponential types to establish support separation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 327 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
With , the symbol class consists of complex-valued such that, for every compact and every pair of multi-indices ,An derivative preserves symbol order, while a derivative lowers it by one. The definition is local in and imposes estimates of every derivative order.
In the homogeneous convention, a phase function is real, smooth on , positively homogeneous of degree one in , and satisfiesOnly the large-frequency behavior is relevant to the regularization argument; any prescribed smooth modification near contributes an ordinary convergent integral. If the phase is presented on all of , homogeneity can be required outside a bounded frequency region. Equivalently for this construction, its large-frequency symbol bounds and the following uniform estimate are sufficient:For a homogeneous phase function, this follows from compactness of . Nonvanishing of the total gradient is the condition; may vanish. The displayed definition does not impose the stronger rank condition sometimes called a nondegenerate phase in Fourier-integral-operator theory.
We construct the oscillatory integral by integration by parts in both and . For , setThen . The coefficients of the derivatives have symbol order and those of the derivatives have order zero. Use the bilinear formal transpose of a differential operator, not the Hermitian adjoint:The symbol order reduction by a phase integration operator follows from the product rule and the symbol class estimates: locally in . Differentiating the coefficients preserves precisely these orders because is elliptic of degree two on each compact set.
Let equal one on and vanish on . The low-frequency part is an ordinary integral. For an integer , define the high-frequency part byIf the homogeneous phase is only defined off zero, its value at the single point zero is immaterial to the low-frequency integral; its modulus remains one. In the high-frequency term all coefficients are used away from zero. For , repeated product rules giveSince , both terms converge absolutely. They are linear in the test function, with the continuity boundThus , with order of a distribution at most on each compact set.
To check that this construction is the intended oscillatory integral and does not depend on , or the large-frequency cutoff, let equal one near zero and formAfter applications of integration by parts, the term without a derivative on tends to the absolutely convergent high-frequency term by the dominated convergence theorem. Each extra term is supported in an annulus . A derivative of contributes , so those terms have total absolute value at most . The low-frequency part is unchanged for large . Hence tends to the displayed functional, independently of all cutoffs and of the permissible number of integrations. This proves the cutoff independence of an oscillatory integral as well as its continuity.
For the final distribution, the derivative convention identifies it as . The delta derivatives from polynomial oscillatory amplitudes identity yieldsHere , , and is nonzero for . Thus the phase is admissible even though vanishes on the distribution's support.
For a direct proof of the sign and normalization, put . The cutoff integral isThe Fourier transform is rapidly decreasing, so the dominated convergence theorem and differentiated Fourier inversion giveThis is exactly the required pairing, so the oscillatory representation gives the prescribed distribution, not its negative or a multiple of it.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 328 1 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use the Bromwich inversion formula in the real variable , with :When the relevant Laplace transforms and spatial integral transforms are explicit, every sample of this integrand can be evaluated directly, without a time-stepping approximation to the partial differential equation. Split the initial condition integral at : the two pieces of are linear combinations of , so truncated spatial exponential transforms suffice. For real data the negative-frequency half is the complex conjugate of the positive-frequency half.
A practical numerical integration is to truncate to , apply an adaptive quadrature rule, and independently increase and refine the quadrature. Choose large enough to remain to the right of all singularities, but avoid an unnecessarily large . Evaluate hyperbolic function ratios in scaled form; for example,This prevents overflow when is large. The boundary contributions at an interior point are damped by or , with . Near an endpoint more frequencies are needed; at the endpoint itself use the prescribed Dirichlet boundary condition. The initial condition resolvent has a generally only tail. Treat its oscillatory tail accurately, subtract a known transform with the same leading term, or evaluate that contribution separately with the heat kernel.
An equally useful check is the eigenfunction expansion. DefineThe causal modal formula isIt follows either from the heat kernel formula or directly from integration by parts against a sine eigenfunction. Exponential-transform formulas evaluate the time integral explicitly when available. The initial condition contribution has a Gaussian function cutoff in for each positive time. Nonzero endpoint forcing produces a more slowly convergent sine series tail. A boundary lifting gives , where has zero Dirichlet boundary conditions and forcing ; expanding gives better convergence and imposes the endpoint values exactly. At very small times the method of images is often more efficient than retaining many modes.
Check convergence by increasing both the frequency cutoff and quadrature resolution, and compare with a separately truncated causal modal or image-kernel evaluation. Causality in finite-time Laplace contour inversion means a leftward contour deformation must respect both resolvent operator poles and growth of the transformed data. In particular, the transform of data extended by zero after can grow like in the left half-plane: for one cannot close that contour indiscriminately and discard its large arc. The modal forcing integral with upper limit avoids this causality error.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 328 1 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Put and apply the Dirichlet gauge transform for constant drift . Taking derivatives directly removes the advection term and gives the damped heat equation . Thus , while the two Dirichlet boundary conditions become and .
The Dirichlet heat kernel on an interval and its damped version areThe method of images gives an alternative, often better at short times:To determine the boundary signs, multiply the equation for by the backward heat kernel and use integration by parts in . Since the kernel vanishes at , the surviving boundary expression is . Consequently an integral representation containing only the given data isThis is a Dirichlet boundary-forcing heat-kernel formula. For the short-time Gaussian decay makes the forcing integral well defined. The endpoint values are interior limits of the complete formula: evaluating a termwise sine series at an endpoint before taking the time integral loses the nonzero boundary values. At the initial corners a continuous classical solution requires and ; otherwise the same formula describes the solution away from those corners.
Here is a second integral representation, useful when the integral transforms are explicit. Extend by zero after ; the values of the extension cannot affect a solution at . Write their Laplace transforms as and set using the principal square root. The transformed Dirichlet Green function for isIt vanishes at both endpoints and its first derivative in jumps by , which verifies the sign of its unit source. The resolvent kernel for Dirichlet advection-diffusion on an interval gives the transformed solutionThe Bromwich inversion formula therefore yieldsThe square-root notation creates no genuine branch singularity here: all three kernels are even in . Their only spatial resolvent operator poles are . This transformed formula and the causal heat kernel formula represent the same solution in the usual smooth-data class.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 331 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
A direct elimination of pressure gives the same result as taking a double curl of the momentum equation. Incompressibility gives . Apply to the vertical momentum equation and subtract this pressure derivative to obtainHere is the horizontal Laplacian. At , impermeability gives and fixed temperature gives . The stress-free boundary condition gives , since horizontal derivatives of the boundary value vanish. Differentiating incompressibility once in therefore givesFor a horizontal Fourier mode , with real . More generally the nonnegative spectrum of follows by integration by parts for periodic or square-integrable horizontal disturbances. Substituting the separated normal mode gives, with ,The boundary conditions admit a complete Fourier sine series in . For a nonzero horizontal wavenumber, take , , and set . The two amplitude equations areThus the stress-free convection growth-rate polynomial isIts discriminant is , so both growth rates are real for . For , its two coefficients after the leading term are positive: their sum gives , and their product is . Real roots are both negative; nonreal roots have real part . Hence stable heating from above damps every mode. Horizontally uniform thermal modes and uncoupled horizontal viscous modes are also purely damped; impermeability and incompressibility exclude a horizontally uniform nonzero .
Because the unstable-side roots are real, the onset is stationary, an exchange of stabilities in stress-free convection. Setting gives the free-slip convection neutral curveWith , its derivative has the sign of . Its minimum is at , with value . Minimizing also over gives the critical values
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 331 4 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use the kinetic-energy inner product , with perturbation energy . On divergence-free fields the primal generator, before the pressure projection, isThe base state is also divergence-free. The periodic boundary terms in cancel, and decay at removes the remaining boundary terms. Integration by parts changes to ; the Laplacian is self-adjoint under these conditions. Writing , the shear term has adjoint operator . A pressure gradient pairs to zero with a divergence-free field. Hencewhere the last term enforces the divergence-free projection.
To conserve over the finite interval, the physical-time adjoint obeys . Put and ; then . This reverses the interval from towards , or towards .
For , the vorticity cross-product identity and the curl of a cross producthold when both fields are divergence-free. Their difference equals the transport and shear terms in the adjoint operator. Therefore the adjoint linearized Navier-Stokes evolution isThe Leray-Helmholtz projection determines the adjoint pressure. The time-dependent base state is evaluated at ; no extra time derivative of that base state appears in the spatial adjoint operator.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 336 1 b i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Set . At the positive real endpoint the contour is real and crosses the saddle point at zero. The Gaussian integral givesBoth omitted tails are exponentially small. At the negative real endpoint the contour is oriented leftward and does not cross the saddle point:The endpoint contribution in steepest descent, or one integration by parts, gives . The upper-end correction is and is much smaller. ThereforeThe sign comes from contour orientation, not from a different Gaussian convention.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ia Paper 2 4F ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
The conditional density givesusing either integration by parts or the expected value of an exponential distribution. HenceThis is a finite value for almost every realization of , but not an integrable random variable: . Since , its conditional expectation remains well-defined in the nonnegative, extended-expectation sense; the tower property of conditional expectation then gives .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ia Paper 3 12B c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
Let , using real-valued smooth and a fixed bounded region. Differentiation under the integral sign and Green's first identity yieldThe boundary term vanishes because on , and the heat equation gives in . ConsequentlyThe integrand is continuous and nonnegative. Thus at any fixed time, equality is equivalent to everywhere in , also giving there at that time. This proves Dirichlet energy dissipation for the heat equation.
The boundary condition fixes the boundary temperature in time; it is not a zero normal derivative condition. No sign condition on is used. The stated smoothness licenses the time derivative, spatial integration by parts and boundary trace; without that regularity an appropriate weak energy argument would be required.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ib Paper 1 14B a ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
The original PDF has forcing ; the supplied TeX loses the absolute-value bars. Set . First assume and . The Fourier transform of a derivative, obtained by integration by parts with the boundary terms zero, is . Applying it and the preceding transform givesUsing the inverse Fourier transform pairs from part (i),Both decay conditions hold. The first derivatives of the two exponential terms cancel at zero, so is continuously differentiable there; the second derivatives have matching limits and the differential equation holds at zero as well as on both half-lines. For uniqueness, a difference solves the homogeneous equation. Decay gives on the positive half-line and on the negative half-line. Continuity gives and derivative continuity gives , forcing both to be zero.
The PDF's condition also allows , but no decaying solution exists when . Indeed on , and decay forces ; on , decay forces . Their one-sided derivatives at zero are and , which cannot match. The missing condition is therefore a genuine source omission, not a transcription repair. The transform expression at has a nonintegrable singularity, consistently with this obstruction.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ib Paper 1 4D Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
Take a smooth variation with on the boundary. Assume enough differentiability for the following operations, for example a smooth bounded open set, , and a twice continuously differentiable integrand. Differentiation under the integral givesBy integration by parts, the boundary term vanishes and the first variation isStationarity for every such variation, including every compactly supported smooth one, and the fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations give the Euler-Lagrange equationFor the quadratic integrand, , , and . Thuswith the prescribed Dirichlet boundary condition. For real , a stationary function is also the unique minimizer, if it exists: for any nonzero admissible , the linear term vanishes and . This last positivity uses the zero boundary values; it also holds at .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 105 1 2 b Solution 2026-10-05
Repeated integration by parts against a compactly supported test function gives the bilinear formal adjointThere is no boundary remainder because has compact support. The product rule makes this an order-at-most- linear differential operator with real analytic coefficients. The displayed integral pairing has no complex conjugation, so this is the formal transpose; for a sesquilinear pairing the coefficients would be conjugated.
For uniqueness, suppose is the difference of two candidates. Then for every smooth compactly supported and , so for every such . At an interior point, a polynomial times a cutoff can prescribe every derivative of through order independently. Hence each coefficient of is zero. This proves uniqueness as a differential operator, not only uniqueness of its integrated action.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 105 1 2 c Solution 2026-10-05
Taken literally, the printed condition is insufficient: the choice of which factor vanishes may depend on the multi-index. For a counterexample already at , let , let be a small rectangle compactly contained in the unit ball, and choose nonnegative with positive integral. PutOn the vertical edges , and on the horizontal edges and its derivatives vanish. Every first derivative of is zero. Thus for every the same-index alternative in the PDF holds at every boundary point. But
The valid complete boundary-jet condition for formal adjoints is that, at each boundary point, either all derivatives of through order vanish or all such derivatives of vanish. On a bounded piecewise smooth domain with smooth coefficients up to its closure, repeated integration by parts produces boundary terms of the form , multiplied by a normal component, with . Expanding the second factor shows that every summand vanishes under this stronger whole-jet alternative. Hence the desired identity holds under that condition. The later cap argument satisfies this stronger condition face by face, so it remains valid despite the literal error in this subpart. Boundary regularity and finite integrals are also needed for a general noncompact-support integration formula; the caps used below have them.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 105 2 f Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Here is a direct use of the spherical representation that also avoids estimating separate coordinate derivatives at the poles. Put , , and write for unit-sphere area. Then . Expanding its squared norm with the physical measure givesOn each boundary sphere , so every angular derivative, including and , is zero there. Radial and angular integration by parts consequently giveIndeed the term gives with boundary remainder , while the term is , its boundary remainder also being zero. Thuswhere the last step uses the preceding energy estimate and . All unmarked integrals in these two identities are with .
To control every angular second derivative, the spherical Hessian identity isIt follows by integrating the derivative-commutation identity and using on the unit sphere. There is no sphere boundary. Hence the preceding bound controls , , and in their appropriate weighted norms.
In an orthonormal polar frame the Cartesian Hessian matrix has componentsand . Since is bounded above and below, these bounds plus the first-order estimate proveThis is the direct spherical-shell H2 estimate. Intrinsic angular integration combines the suggested angular tests, with no spurious boundary at the polar coordinate singularities.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 137 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Use the Fourier transform normalization . A precise version of the Poisson summation formula is that, for every Schwartz function ,Both series have absolute convergence. Here being a Schwartz function means being smooth with for all nonnegative integers . This hypothesis makes the sums and the termwise operations below legitimate; the formula is not being asserted for arbitrary integrable functions.
Form the periodization of a Schwartz function . Every differentiated series has uniform convergence on , by rapid decay, so is a smooth periodic function of period one. Its th Fourier coefficient isThe interchange follows from absolute convergence uniformly on this interval. Integration by parts shows that these Fourier coefficients decrease faster than every inverse power of . Thus the Fourier series converges absolutely and uniformly to ; for example the standard convergence theorem for twice continuously differentiable periodic functions applies. Evaluating at zero proves the Poisson summation formula.
For , scaling the given Gaussian Fourier transform givesApplying the Poisson summation formula gives the real-parameter Jacobi theta function transformation
For , termwise application of the Mellin transform is justified by integrating absolute values and givesEach positive contributes , and the factor one half removes the equal positive and negative terms. This is the Mellin representation of the completed Riemann zeta function.
Split the integral at one. On , the Jacobi theta function transformation writes . Integrating the first two terms and substituting in the third yields the pole-subtracted theta integral for the completed zeta function:The remaining integral is an entire function of : , and on each compact set of this exponential dominates all powers of and all factors arising from differentiation. It therefore supplies a meromorphic continuation of to the whole plane, with simple poles at one and zero, of residues and , respectively. Its expression is unchanged by .
The reciprocal Gamma function is entire, with simple zeros at its nonpositive integer arguments. Consequentlyis holomorphic everywhere except for a simple pole at , of residue one. The apparent pole at cancels; in fact gives . This proves the analytic continuation of the Riemann zeta function. The completed functional equation of the Riemann zeta function isThese are equalities of meromorphic functions; at apparent singularities they are interpreted by continuation. Equivalently, is an entire function with .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 203 2 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Using the usual zero-boundary Sobolev space convention,where weak derivatives define and is the space of test functions. In the Gaussian free field convention, the same notation often denotes the Dirichlet energy space, the completion in the gradient norm alone. On bounded domains the Poincare inequality makes the two definitions equivalent; on unbounded domains one must distinguish them. The following gradient-pairing argument applies in either setting whenever the energy completion is realized as weak functions.
Identify with a vector subspace of by zero extension of H01. Approximating by test functions in shows that this is an isometric embedding in the inhomogeneous Sobolev norm and also in the Dirichlet inner product norm. In particular, arbitrary irregularity of causes no additional boundary term.
DefineThese are weakly harmonic Sobolev functions. For , integration by parts in the weak sense gives . If , choose converging to in , or in energy for the homogeneous convention. The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality givesHence the orthogonality of supported and harmonic Dirichlet functions isBoth are linear vector subspaces. In the inhomogeneous convention they are closed: the first is the isometric image of a complete space, and the second is the intersection of the kernels of the linear functionals . No spanning assertion is needed. The PDF contains this orthogonality statement; the TeX has badly corrupted it into an assertion about openness.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 206 3 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For , minimize the smoothing spline objective over the Sobolev space of functions with square-integrable second derivative on the observed interval:The roughness penalty measures curvature; its null space consists of affine functions. To see why the minimizer is a natural cubic spline, let be the natural spline interpolating the values of any competitor at its distinct observation locations, and put . Integration by parts twice on each knot interval gives : on each interval, vanishes at the knots, is continuous, and vanishes at the outer endpoints. Hencewhile both functions have the same residual sum of squares. This proves the reduction to a finite-dimensional spline space.
For distinct and , use its -dimensional basis, write , and define the positive semidefinite matrixThe penalized least squares problem is , soUse linear continuation outside the observation interval. The fitted-value matrix is ; its trace gives the effective degrees of freedom. As decreases to zero, the natural spline approaches interpolation, with trace ; as it grows without bound, the fit approaches ordinary least squares on , with trace two. For the criterion alone does not determine values between observations; the natural interpolant is the limiting convention. Repeated observation locations are combined by using distinct knots and their multiplicities as weights, rather than pretending the spline design has independent interpolation values.
