Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2014 / iii / Paper 6 / 2 / i / Solution

The weak-star topology $\sigma (X^{\ast },X)$ is the topology of pointwise convergence on $X$. A basic neighborhood of $f_0$ has the formLet $J:X\to X^{\ast \ast }$ be the canonical embedding into the bidual, $Jx(f)=f(x)$. It is an isometry. The Goldstine theorem says thatHere both balls are closed unit balls. Thus approximation is by finitely many dual evaluations at a time; the theorem does not assert norm density in the bidual space.