Write . First we prove decay of coefficients of an almost-everywhere convergent trigonometric series rather than assuming the series can be integrated term by term. For , tends to zero outside the finite set . Suppose does not tend to zero, and choose a subsequence with . Then and almost everywhere. The dominated convergence theorem gives
orthogonality of the two distinct Fourier modes instead makes the integral , a contradiction. Thus .
Define on the real line the twice-integrated continuous function
The series has both absolute convergence and uniform convergence because its coefficients are bounded. Its symmetric second quotient is therefore, for nonzero ,
We next prove that this tends to zero whenever , lifted periodically to the line. Let and for , so the partial sums of the are exactly . Put and . Summation by parts gives
The boundary term vanishes because is bounded and for fixed nonzero . Moreover
Indeed near zero and for . Each fixed weight difference tends to zero as . Splitting the last series at an index beyond which therefore bounds its upper limit by . Letting proves the claimed zero second quotient. This explicitly proves the needed Riemann summation of a convergent trigonometric series, despite the oscillations in its weights.
We also need the elementary fact that a continuous function with zero symmetric second derivative at every interior point of an interval is affine. For a real-valued function, subtract its endpoint chord on any compact subinterval . If the difference were positive somewhere, adding for sufficiently small would retain a positive maximum at an interior point. At that maximum each symmetric second difference is nonpositive, while its quotient tends to , a contradiction. Thus the function lies below its chord. Apply the argument to its negative to get the reverse inequality. Applying this to real and imaginary parts proves the complex-valued case as well. This establishes that vanishing symmetric second derivative forces an affine function. Hence is an affine function on each open interval between the finitely many exceptional points in any period.
It remains to exclude corners at those points. Multiplying the formula for the second quotient by , and using and the evenness of , gives
for every , by the infinite-series version of part (i), since . continuity extends the adjacent affine pieces to each exceptional point, and the fact that symmetric second differences detect an affine corner makes their slopes and intercepts agree. Thus is globally an affine function on the real line.
The periodic part of its definition gives . An affine function has constant increments, so . The resulting is both an affine function and a periodic function, hence constant. Finally, absolute uniform convergence justifies integrating its defining series against , and for the resulting Fourier coefficient is . A constant has all these coefficients zero. Therefore , proving uniqueness of a trigonometric series outside a finite set with all exceptional points accounted for.
The symmetric second derivative is the displayed limit when it exists. For a twice continuously differentiable function it equals the ordinary second derivative by Taylor expansion; the definition itself does not require ordinary differentiability. A continuous function with vanishing symmetric second derivative throughout an interval must be affine, by vanishing symmetric second derivative forces an affine function. For a twice-integrated Fourier series, sinc-squared weights express this quotient, connecting the operation to Riemann summation of a convergent trigonometric series.
If the symmetric partial sums of tend to zero at every point outside a finite set, then all coefficients vanish. Almost-everywhere convergence first gives . The twice-integrated series is continuous. Riemann summation of a convergent trigonometric series makes its symmetric second derivative zero away from the exceptional points, so it is affine on each intervening interval. Sinc-squared summation of a sequence tending to zero makes its symmetric first-order quotient zero everywhere, removing all possible affine corners. The globally affine function differs from a periodic function by , forcing ; periodicity then makes it constant, and integration against each nonzero frequency gives .