Let with the supremum norm. By equivalence of norms in finite dimensions, there is such that whenever . Hence
so . This upgrades convergence on fixed polynomials to operator norm convergence on the fixed space.
For sufficiently large , , and a Neumann series gives
Thus the inverse Bernstein approximation on a fixed-degree polynomial space satisfies . By the extreme value theorem, strict positivity on the compact interval gives . Eventually , and consequently
Applying pointwise convergence to the varying polynomials without this finite-dimensional operator argument would not justify the conclusion.
If a polynomial is strictly positive on , take . By inverse Bernstein approximation on a fixed-degree polynomial space, eventually on the interval. Therefore
has strictly positive coefficients. The converse implication to nonnegativity follows immediately because each basis term is nonnegative. Strict positivity is essential for the general existence result: a nonzero polynomial vanishing at an interior point cannot have a nonnegative-coefficient representation in this basis, whose individual terms are positive throughout the open interval.