Assignment 4 – Due October 18

All written assignments are due in the class on the specified date. One summary report is required for
each programming project. You may hand in a printed copy of your report in class on the due day and
email all of your source codes (with instruction on how to compile and run) before 11:30PM of the same
day. Or, you may email all of your source codes and the report in an electronic format before 11:30PM on
the due date.
Grading: Total is 100 points, with 20 for each.
1. Suppose f (x) ∈ C 3 [−α, α] for some α > 0. Consider an example of Padé approximation:
a + bx
R(x) =
1 + cx
choose a, b, c such that
R(j) (0) = f (j) (0), j = 0, 1, 2.
Does such R(x) always exist?
2. Assume f (x) ∈ C 2 [a, b] with f 00 (x) > 0 on [a, b]. If q1∗ (x) = a0 + a1 x is the linear minimax
approximation to f (x) on [a, b], show that
  
f (b) − f (a) f (a) + f (c) a+c f (b) − f (a)
a1 = , a0 = −
b−a 2 2 b−a
where c is the unique solution of
f (b) − f (a)
f 0 (c) =
b−a
Find the value of ρ.
3. Solve the following minimization problem.
Z 1
(a) min |x − αx2 |2 dx
α −1
Z 1
(b) min |x − αx2 | dx
α −1
(c) min max |x − αx2 |
α −1≤x≤1

4. Let {ϕn (x)} be an orthogonal family of polynomials for weight function ω(x) on [a, b]. Denote the
zeros of ϕn (x) as
a < z1,n < z2,n < · · · < zn,n < b
Show that the zeros of ϕn+1 (x) are separated by those of of ϕn (x), i.e.,
a < z1,n+1 < z1,n < z2,n+1 < · · · < zn,n+1 < zn,n < zn+1,n+1
Hint: Use induction, and the triple recursion relation.
5. The Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind is
1
Sn (x) = T 0 (x), n ≥ 0
n + 1 n+1
where Tn+1 (x) is the Chebyshev polynomial of degree (n + 1).

(a) Prove
√ that {Sn (x)|n ≥ 0} is an orthogonal family on [−1, 1] w.r.t the weight function ω(x) =
1 − x2 .
(b) Show that {Sn (x)} satisfies the same triple recursion relation as the family {Tn (x)}
(c) Given f (x) ∈ C[−1, 1], solve the minimization problem:
Z 1p
min 1 − x2 (f (x) − p(x))2 dx
p(x)∈Pn (x) −1

where Pn (x) is the space of all the polynomials with degree≤ n.