An Algebraic Proof of Weierstrass's Approximation Theorem
Classical Analysis and ODEs
2025-07-02 v1 Probability
Abstract
In this paper we use the Vandermonde matrices and their properties to give a new proof of the classical result of Karl Weierstrass about the approximation of continuous functions on closed intervals, using a sequence of polynomials. The proof solves linear systems of equations using that the Vandermonde matrices have always non zero determinants, when the entries of the power series of the rows of the matrix are all different. We provide several examples, and we also use our method to observe that the sequence of polynomials that we construct algebraically approaches the Taylor series of a function which is infinitely differentiable.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2507.00834,
title = {An Algebraic Proof of Weierstrass's Approximation Theorem},
author = {José M. González Barrios and Alberto Contreras-Cristán and Patricia I. Romero-Mares},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.00834},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
3 figures