Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 ii Paper 4 12I ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
For , putEach is closed, the hypothesis gives , and because a function that vanishes on an open set has derivative zero there.
The open setis dense. Indeed, inside any nonempty open interval choose a nondegenerate closed subinterval . The complete metric space is covered by the closed sets , so the Baire's theorem makes one of them contain a relative open interval, which lies in some .
On each connected component of , the function is one polynomial. To see this, any compact subinterval is covered by the increasing family . A finite subcover therefore gives for some , and on . Hence is polynomial on ; overlapping compact intervals force these polynomials to agree throughout .
Let . This closed set has no isolated points. Otherwise, on the two sides of an isolated point , would equal polynomials. Smoothness makes all their one-sided derivatives agree at , so the two polynomials are identical and extend across . Some derivative would then vanish on a neighborhood of , contrary to .
Suppose that is nonempty. It is complete andis a countable closed cover. A second application of Baire's theorem gives an index and an open interval such thatChoose and a bounded open interval centred at whose closure lies in .
Because has no isolated points, every is approached by distinct points of . Difference quotients first give , and induction gives
No component of meeting can cross , so it has an endpoint in . If its polynomial had degree , then its th derivative would approach a nonzero constant at that endpoint, contradicting the preceding display. Its degree is therefore less than , so also vanishes on the part of that component in . We conclude that throughout , which says and contradicts .
Thus is empty. The whole line is the single component of , and the argument above shows that is one polynomial on . This is the smooth function with a pointwise vanishing derivative theorem.