Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2017 / iii / Paper 106 / 2 / b / i / Solution

For each $t\in [0,1]$, evaluation ${\delta }_t:f\mapsto f(t)$ is a bounded linear functional of norm one. Thus weak convergence to zero gives $f_n(t)\to 0$ at every $t$. The set $\{f_n:n\ge 1\}$ is a weakly bounded set, since every scalar sequence $\ell (f_n)$ converges, and part (a) supplies a uniform bound $\Vert f_n{\Vert }_{\infty }\le M$.

The constant $M$ is integrable for Lebesgue measure on $[0,1]$. Applying the dominated convergence theorem to $|f_n|$ gives the weakly null continuous functions converge in L1 conclusionPointwise convergence alone would not provide the needed uniform dominating function; it is the weak boundedness argument that supplies it.