3.II.21F

Linear Analysis
Part II, 2008

State and prove the Stone-Weierstrass theorem for real-valued functions. You may assume that the function xxx \mapsto|x| can be uniformly approximated by polynomials on any interval [k,k][-k, k].

Suppose that 0<a<b<10<a<b<1. Let F\mathcal{F} be the set of functions which can be uniformly approximated on [a,b][a, b] by polynomials with integer coefficients. By making appropriate use of the identity

12=x1(12x)=n=0x(12x)n\frac{1}{2}=\frac{x}{1-(1-2 x)}=\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} x(1-2 x)^{n}

or otherwise, show that F=C([a,b])\mathcal{F}=\mathcal{C}([a, b]).

Is it true that every continuous function on [0,b][0, b] can be uniformly approximated by polynomials with integer coefficients?