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Why is it true that
for all x ∈ [ 0 , 1 ] and all n , m ∈ N : f ( n ) ( x ) = 0 ⟹ f ( n + m ) ( x ) = 0
?
I thought that if f ( n ) ( x ) ∣ ∣ x = a = 0 , then f ( n + 1 ) ( x ) ∣ ∣ x = a = d x d f ( n ) ( x ) ∣ ∣ x = a = d x d 0 = 0 . By induction it follows that f ( n + m ) ( x ) ∣ ∣ x = a = 0 . I can't really see what could be wrong with this argument
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Nevermind, I have already figured out where the mistake is.
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Yeah, that's okay.
If you follow the links in the problem statement, you will find some solutions. They use Baire's Category Theorem.
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@Agnishom Chattopadhyay – Thank you, I will look into them.
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This proof might be incorrect, but I want to know what you think.
Let f be a function satisfying the given conditions. Let N : = min { n ∈ N ∣ ∀ x ∈ [ 0 , 1 ] : f ( n ) ( x ) = 0 } . This minimum exists, because of the second condition and the fact that for all x ∈ [ 0 , 1 ] and all n , m ∈ N : f ( n ) ( x ) = 0 ⟹ f ( n + m ) ( x ) = 0 . Because of the choice of N , it follows that f ( N ) is identically equal to 0 on the interval [ 0 , 1 ] while f ( N − 1 ) is not identically 0 on the same interval. So, f ( x ) = N times ∫ ⋯ ∫ f ( N ) ( x ) N times d x ⋯ d x = N times ∫ ⋯ ∫ 0 N times d x ⋯ d x = C N − 1 ⋅ x N − 1 + C N − 2 ⋅ x N − 2 + ⋯ + C 1 ⋅ x + C 0 , where C 0 , … , C N − 1 denote constant coefficients. We conclude that f is a polynomial.