Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2025 / iii / Paper 318 / 4 / b / Solution

Let $e_m$ denote the $m$th elementary symmetric polynomial of $t_{i+1},\dots ,t_{i+k-1}$. Expanding both sides of the Marsden identity in powers of $x$ and equating the coefficient of $x^{k-1-m}$ givesThus $a_{0,i}=1$, while $a_{1,i}$ and $a_{2,i}$ are respectively the means of the interior knots and of their pairwise products.