Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 8 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
We prove the Kahane-Katznelson divergence theorem through an explicit small-norm block construction. Let be normalized Lebesgue measure on the circle.
First establish the compact-set Fourier amplification lemma. If a compact set satisfieswe can make a trigonometric polynomial with , supported in any sufficiently high interval of positive frequencies, whose partial prefix has magnitude greater than on .
To construct it, choose a smooth nonnegative function equal to one near , with values at most one and meanOuter regularity and a smooth cutoff give this choice; the stipulated bound on leaves room between the two exponentials. The Schwarz integral on the unit diskhas positive real part in the disk, , and boundary real part . Its holomorphic logarithmsatisfies and . On , the boundary value has . Smoothness of makes continuous at the boundary, and its positive boundary real part near makes continuous there.
Choose a radius just below one, then truncate the Taylor series of at that radius. This gives an analytic polynomial with zero constant term, degree , andThe radial function is analytic beyond the closed unit disk, so the Taylor truncation is uniform on the whole circle. For , putIts frequencies lie between and , all positive. Its prefix through frequency includes exactly the negative-frequency half of shifted into this interval:Consequently on , whereas . Increasing places the entire block above any previously used frequency.
We next use compact batching of a small open set to handle an arbitrary null set, without assuming that it is compact or a countable union of compact null sets. SetFor each , choose an open with . Decompose into countably many closed subarcs with pairwise disjoint interiors: subdivide each open component into closed pieces accumulating only at its excluded endpoints. Group these subarcs into finite successive batches . After batch , include enough pieces that the remaining total length is less than . Require each batch endpoint in the enumeration to increase. ThenEach batch is compact; endpoints shared by pieces have zero measure and do not affect the estimates.
Enumerate the pairs in diagonal order. Apply the block lemma with target to each , and shift its spectrum above all preceding blocks. Denote the resulting polynomial by and setSince , this series is uniformly convergent and defines a continuous complex-valued function.
Fix . For every there is a with . The difference between the Fourier partial sum just before that block and the sum at its midpoint has magnitude greater than : previous blocks cancel in the difference, and future blocks have not yet entered. As , these cutoffs tend to infinity. At least one of the two partial sums therefore has magnitude greater than . The Fourier partial sums are unbounded, hence not Cauchy, at . We have provedThis establishes divergence on every prescribed null set, including dense nonclosed null sets; it does not assert that the divergence set is exactly .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 69 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Define the second modulus of smoothness by . The Jackson kernel is even, nonnegative and has integral one. Symmetrizing its convolution therefore givesWe first establish the needed scaling rule. For the translation operator , . Squaring gives . Central and forward second differences have the same norm. For every , take and . Taking the supremum over these provesThe zero-step case is immediate.
For , the inequalities , , and implyUse the first estimate on and the second outside it. ThenAll constants are independent of and . Combining these estimates proves the Jackson operator estimateFor , two applications of the fundamental theorem of calculus give the second-difference integral formulafor . Its absolute value is at most , so .
Finally, is a trigonometric polynomial of degree : its sine ratio squared is a Fejér polynomial of degree , and squaring doubles that degree. Thus has degree at most . To bound degree- best approximation, choose , rather than using directly. Since for , the smooth-function approximation rate is
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 108 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
A continuous map of a compact metric space is uniquely ergodic if it has exactly one invariant measure that is a Borel probability measure. The uniqueness requirement ranges over all invariant Borel probability measures.
For an irrational rotation of the circle, let on , and let be any invariant Borel probability measure. For each integer , set . Invariance givesFor , irrationality forces , so the corresponding Fourier coefficient is zero. For it is one. These are exactly the Fourier coefficients of normalized Lebesgue measure . By the Stone-Weierstrass theorem, trigonometric polynomials are uniformly dense in the continuous functions on the circle group; hence and integrate every continuous function equally and are the same Borel probability measure. Since is invariant, the irrational rotation of the circle is uniquely ergodic, with unique measure .
For the irrational skew shift on the two-dimensional torus, writeThe map is invertible, with modulo one, and it preserves as allowed in the question. We first prove the ergodic transformation property by the invariant-function characterization of ergodicity.
Let satisfy . Its expansion in the Fourier basis is in . Direct calculation of the Koopman operator givesUniqueness of the Fourier coefficients therefore impliesFor , the magnitudes of the Fourier coefficients along all distinct indices , , are equal. By the Bessel inequality they are square summable, so every such coefficient must be zero. When , the relation becomes , which forces for . Only remains. Thus every invariant function is constant, and
To prove unique ergodicity, we will establish uniform averages for every continuous function directly. No theorem on unique ergodicity of skew products is needed. Induction on , using the old first coordinate in the second coordinate of , yieldsIn particular, for a Fourier basis element,If and , this is a geometric series in , anduniformly in .
For , we give the finite Van der Corput inequality for finite scalar sequences and its proof. For , extend by zero outside . Fix an integer and set . Every original summand appears times in the identityThe Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, followed by expansion of the squared window sums, givesConsequently the Van der Corput inequality for finite scalar sequences isThe finite prefactor is important; the order of limits will be with fixed, followed by .
For the irrational skew shift character sequence above, differencing cancels the quadratic term:For every fixed , is irrational, so another geometric series estimate givesuniformly in . With fixed , the Van der Corput inequality for finite scalar sequences therefore impliesLetting proves that the averages of every nonconstant Fourier basis element converge uniformly to zero. The constant character has average one. This establishes uniform equidistribution of an irrational skew shift on all trigonometric polynomials.
The Stone-Weierstrass theorem makes these trigonometric polynomials uniformly dense in . If approximates a continuous with , thenTaking and then proves uniform convergence to for every continuous .
Finally, if is any invariant Borel probability measure for the irrational skew shift, invariance and this uniform convergence giveThus , since continuous functions determine Borel probability measures on a compact metric space. We concludeThe uniform-average proof also shows that every starting point has the same limiting continuous-function averages, a stronger conclusion than the almost-everywhere assertion provided by the pointwise ergodic theorem.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 108 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A continuous transformation of a compact metric space is uniquely ergodic when there is exactly one -invariant Borel probability measure on . We use the usual compact-space convention for unique ergodicity; the compactness and continuity hypotheses matter in the assertion about all starting points.
Let on the circle group, with irrational. Normalized Lebesgue measure is invariant under this irrational rotation of the circle. If is any invariant Borel probability measure, define its Fourier coefficients by . Invariance givesFor , irrationality makes , so ; also . These are the Fourier coefficients of . Hence and have the same integrals against every trigonometric polynomial. Such polynomials are uniformly dense in the continuous functions by the Stone-Weierstrass theorem, so the measures agree on every continuous test function and therefore agree as Borel measures. Thus
For the general uniquely ergodic system, fix and form the empirical measuresOn a compact metric space, the Borel probability measures are compact for weak convergence of probability measures. Any subsequential limit is invariant: for every continuous ,Here is bounded and is continuous, so the identity passes to the limit. Uniqueness of the invariant Borel probability measure gives . Every subsequential limit is therefore , and compactness implies convergence of the entire sequence. Testing against provesIn fact this proves uniform ergodic convergence for uniquely ergodic systems: if convergence were not uniform in , choose and where the discrepancy stays above a fixed positive number. The same compactness and telescoping argument applied to forces a subsequence to converge to , a contradiction. This also makes clear why an almost-everywhere Birkhoff ergodic theorem alone would not establish the requested everywhere assertion. Without the compact-space hypothesis the assertion need not hold: on the discrete space , set and . The only invariant probability is , but the continuous bounded function which is zero at and one on the integer orbit has orbit average one there.
For the decimal application put . This is irrational: if with positive integers , then , contradicting unique prime factorization. Writing with and gives . Its leading decimal digit is seven exactly whenThe half-open upper endpoint correctly excludes powers whose leading digit is eight, including .
The indicator of is not continuous, so an extra step is needed. For any , choose continuous functions on the circle with and , by tapering in small neighbourhoods of the two endpoints. Applying the everywhere averaging result to these functions traps the lower and upper limits of the interval frequency between their integrals. Letting proves everywhere interval frequency under an irrational rotation. ConsequentlyThis is the leading-seven case of Benford frequencies for powers of an integer.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 339 3 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
On the unit circle, , soThus the trigonometric polynomial is nonnegative, with a zero at , andEquivalently, writing gives . The factor has polynomial degree one as required. Multiplication of by any constant of modulus one leaves the factorization unchanged; uniqueness of is not claimed.
This is the simplest instance of the Fejér–Riesz theorem, where nonnegativity of a trigonometric polynomial on the unit circle admits a polynomial modulus-square factorization.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 339 3 b iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Pair the off-circle roots of a polynomial using reciprocal-conjugate root pairing, and split each unit-circle root of a polynomial's even multiplicity equally between the two members of a pair. The fundamental theorem of algebra and the leading coefficient give . None of the selected is zero.
On the unit circle, the identityturns intoAt a point of the unit circle outside the finite set of roots of a polynomial, the product is positive and is nonzero and nonnegative. Its ratio to the product is therefore real and strictly positive. This proves , even though the algebraic expression initially permits a complex constant. ConsequentlyThis proves the Fejér–Riesz theorem for a nonzero trigonometric polynomial of actual order . A positive constant has a constant square-root factor, and the identically zero trigonometric polynomial has ; if for a specified upper order , reduce to the actual order first.
Although the PDF permits assuming even multiplicity, there is a short proof of even multiplicity of unit-circle roots of a nonnegative trigonometric polynomial. The real analytic function cannot have a zero of odd order. Near , has a simple zero, and the nonzero factor leaves the zero order of unchanged. Hence the multiplicity of a root must be even.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 339 3 c ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For on the unit circle, use the conjugated monomial vectorThen the prescribed diagonal sums givePositive semidefiniteness provesThis is the Gram matrix representation of a trigonometric polynomial. The Hermitian condition also implies , so its values on the unit circle are real. The conjugated monomial vector is required by the source's convention; the unconjugated vector would represent instead.
In particular . If this matrix trace is zero, all nonnegative eigenvalues vanish and , so . A general feasible Gram matrix need not have matrix rank one; the Fejér–Riesz theorem ensures a rank-one representative exists whenever the nonnegative trigonometric polynomial is nonzero.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 108 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the probability-system convention . The Birkhoff ergodic theorem, also called the pointwise ergodic theorem, states that for a measure-preserving system and ,where is the invariant sigma-algebra. The limit is integrable and has the same integral as . On a probability space the convergence also holds in , as in the allowed mean ergodic theorem. If is an ergodic transformation, is trivial modulo null sets, giving
The integer multiplication map on the circle preserves Lebesgue measure: for any integrable on ,To prove the ergodicity of integer multiplication on the circle, suppose satisfies . Let be its Fourier coefficients in the Fourier basis . Since , the Fourier coefficients of at index are zero if does not divide , and are otherwise. This identity holds for all functions by approximation with trigonometric polynomials and the isometry . Invariance givesEvery nonzero integer can be divided by only finitely often. Thus for every , and completeness of the Fourier basis makes constant almost everywhere. Applying this to the indicator function of an invariant set gives measure zero or one, so
A normal number in base has every word of base- digits occurring with limiting overlapping frequency . Use the expansion that is not eventually equal to when there are two expansions. The word corresponds to the half-open intervalA word starting at position occurs exactly when . The Birkhoff ergodic theorem, applied to , gives frequency almost everywhere. There are countably many pairs , so their full-measure sets have a full-measure intersection. In particular,These are absolutely normal numbers, so existence follows as well. This interval description also proves normality and equidistribution under integer multiplication: the base- intervals form arbitrarily fine grids, so their frequencies imply the correct frequency for every interval by approximation from inside and outside.
For the growth assertion, put . For every , the Tonelli theorem gives the useful summability boundSince is a measure-preserving transformation, . The first Borel-Cantelli lemma shows that occurs only finitely often almost everywhere. Intersecting the resulting full-measure sets for proves the linear growth bound for integrable observables, . Multiplication by then gives
The threshold is sharp. For , choose with , and take the Bernoulli shift on with the product measure of independent uniform coordinates. The left shift preserves that measure because it preserves the probability of every finite-coordinate event. Define ; it is integrable becauseThe variables are independent. For any fixed ,The probability sum diverges, so the second Borel-Cantelli lemma makes these events occur infinitely often almost surely. Intersecting over positive integer even yields . For , the constant observable already fails to give limit zero. Thus the sharpness of the linear growth bound for integrable observables gives
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 108 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For an increasing sequence of nonnegative integers, full-density sequence means that its range has natural density one:For a sequence in a metric space, convergence in density of a sequence to means that, for every ,In particular, a bounded nonnegative scalar sequence converging to zero in density has averages tending to zero: the average is at most plus its bound times the proportion of indices above .
Here is a Hilbert space form of the Van der Corput lemma, including the density version. Suppose , and putThenSince , it suffices for to converge to zero in density. A frequently used special case is that the correlation average tends to zero for every fixed .
To prove the lemma, extend the finite list by zero outside this range, and write . For ,The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality for this sum, followed by expansion of the squared Hilbert space norm, givesThe coefficient counts the pairs of shifts separated by . Dividing by , bounding real parts by absolute values, and first taking the limit superior in for fixed yieldsThe right side tends to zero as under the stated hypothesis. This proves both the lemma and its density consequence.
For the polynomial application, fix a nonzero integer and let . For each fixed , the correlation phase is linear:Thus, with ,The coefficient is irrational, so . This geometric series is bounded in modulus by and tends to zero. All vanish, so the Van der Corput lemma gives
The Weyl criterion now shows that the fractional parts form an equidistributed sequence. For completeness, its sufficiency here follows directly: the displayed limits give the correct average for every trigonometric polynomial, including the constant term. The Stone-Weierstrass theorem extends this to every continuous function by uniform approximation. Approximating an interval's indicator function above and below by continuous functions gives its length as the limiting frequency. HenceThis proves the equidistribution of a quadratic polynomial with irrational leading coefficient using the required correlation argument.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 340 2 a i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the Fourier transform convention . Nesting and the orthonormal basis of give the scaling refinement equationHere . Compact support makes these inner products zero for all but finitely many , so is a trigonometric polynomial. Expanding the orthogonality of the integer translates of in the orthonormal basis of yieldsConsequentlyThis holds everywhere because is continuous. The invoked properties are nesting, dyadic dilation, orthonormal integer translates, and compact support; mere finite-energy refinement would not imply the quadrature mirror filter identity.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 340 2 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Normalize , as in the displayed product convention. Iterating the scaling refinement equation gives . The finite-product identityhas the value one at zero by continuity. ThereforeWrite . Since , we have . For , take . The first factors are bounded by . For the remaining factors, the trigonometric polynomial satisfies on , henceUsing givesThe strict hypothesis permits with . The given Fourier-decay criterion proves uniform Hölder regularity of exponent . For the ordinary increment definition of Hölder continuity, take : Fourier inversion and directly give the required bound. If , “Lipschitz-” must mean higher-order Hölder space regularity; an ordinary increment bound of exponent greater than one forces a function to be constant. An unnormalized scaling function contributes its constant phase to the product formula.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ii Paper 2 41C a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
For the two-periodic Fourier series, orthogonality of the exponential basis gives the Fourier coefficientwhere any interval of length two could replace .
Let for . Since is real,so and is a Hermitian matrix. For any nonzero ,The trigonometric polynomial in the modulus cannot vanish identically unless every vanishes. Since , the integral is strictly positive. Hence is Hermitian positive definite, which is the positive Fourier-symbol Toeplitz matrix result.
Reciprocal-conjugate root pairing 2026-10-06
For a nonzero real-on-the-circle trigonometric polynomial of actual order , the polynomial satisfies . Its constant term is the nonzero conjugate of its leading coefficient. Hence its nonzero roots of a polynomial occur in pairs with the same multiplicity of a root. The coefficient reversal and complex conjugation preserve the exponents of the paired factors. Fixed roots of a polynomial on the unit circle require nonnegativity, rather than this symmetry alone, to have even multiplicity.
Uniform bound for harmonic sine polynomials 2026-10-07
For , split the sum at . The first part is bounded using ; summation by parts and the geometric bound on interval sine sums control the rest. The harmonic coefficient sum grows like , but cancellations keep the whole trigonometric polynomial uniformly bounded. Modulating this polynomial lets a Fourier partial sum expose the large uncancelled half.
For an irrational skew shift, the averages of every continuous function converge uniformly in the starting point to , with normalized Lebesgue measure. Nonconstant Fourier basis characters have either linear or quadratic phases. Linear phases are bounded geometric series; for quadratic phases the Van der Corput inequality for finite scalar sequences reduces to linear correlations of irrational frequency, uniformly in the starting point. Approximation by trigonometric polynomials proves the assertion and identifies every invariant Borel probability measure as .
Weyl criterion 2026-10-05
A sequence in is an equidistributed sequence if and only if for every nonzero integer . Approximation of continuous functions by trigonometric polynomials proves the criterion.