Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 61 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Put . The linear-reproduction request requires , which we use for that final step. Since , the useful normalized Marsden dual functional isThere is no further factor outside this sum: it has already been included in .
To derive the formula directly from Marsden's identity, Taylor's theorem for the polynomial around the arbitrary point givesOn the other hand,Differentiate Marsden's identity times in , multiply by , and sum over . The left side becomes , while the right side becomesOnly finite sums and derivatives of polynomials are involved.
Independence of the auxiliary point does not require an assumption about uniqueness of an expansion. Differentiate the formula for itself:The first summand at and the second at vanish because both polynomials have degree at most . All remaining terms cancel after shifting the index by one. Therefore is a constant in , and it is visibly a linear functional of .
For , only remain. The leading two coefficients of the monic knot polynomial giveIt follows thatSubstituting into the expansion proveson the basic knot interval. Thus the Greville abscissae are exactly the sampling coefficients that reproduce linear polynomials; the constant case also gives the subpartition of unity for B-splines with equality on this interval.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 61 5 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Write , and let . We use the standard interpolation convention of distinct ordered sites . Together with , the Schoenberg–Whitney theorem makes the B-spline collocation matrix invertible. Equivalently, its invertibility is implicit in the existence of the interpolation operator for every data vector.
If distinctness is not understood, the printed positivity condition alone is insufficient. For the order-two basis on spline knots , take . Both diagonal B-spline values are , but the two rows of coincide. Arbitrary data cannot then be interpolated uniquely. The norm statement below concerns the intended well-defined interpolation operator.
Spline interpolation determines the coefficient vector by , and henceNonnegativity and the subpartition of unity for B-splines giveFor completeness, extend the finite spline knot sequence beyond both ends. For the full sequence the order-one interval indicators sum to one. Summing the Cox-de Boor recurrence and shifting the index in its second term combines the two coefficients of each lower-order B-spline to one, so induction gives partition of unity at every order. Our finite collection is a subset of that nonnegative collection, and thus has sum at most one. Repeated spline knots are handled by the standard zero-term convention or a knot limit. This argument controls the entire interval, not only the basic knot interval.
Since , the operator norm upper bound isHere the matrix operator norm is the maximum absolute row sum. For the lower bound, choose a row of with maximum absolute row sum and a data vector whose components are the signs of that row's entries. Then andA continuous piecewise-linear function taking these values at the distinct ordered sites, and constant outside their range, has supremum norm one. Apply the given uniform-norm stability of a B-spline basis to its coefficient vector:ThereforeThe construction of the bounded continuous data extension is what permits the matrix norm to give a lower bound for a function-space operator norm.
Uniform-norm stability of a B-spline basis 2026-10-07
For a linearly independent partition-normalized B-spline basis, equivalence of norms gives a lower coefficient-stability constant. The upper bound follows from the subpartition of unity for B-splines. A knot-independent stability bound can be chosen depending on spline order. This norm comparison transfers matrix estimates to the B-spline interpolation operator norm.