Paper 1, Section II, G

Linear Algebra
Part IB, 2009

Define the dual of a vector space VV. State and prove a formula for its dimension.

Let VV be the vector space of real polynomials of degree at most nn. If {a0,,an}\left\{a_{0}, \ldots, a_{n}\right\} are distinct real numbers, prove that there are unique real numbers {λ0,,λn}\left\{\lambda_{0}, \ldots, \lambda_{n}\right\} with

dpdx(0)=j=0nλjp(aj)\frac{d p}{d x}(0)=\sum_{j=0}^{n} \lambda_{j} p\left(a_{j}\right)

for every p(x)Vp(x) \in V.