Concentration of the error between a function and its polynomial of best uniform approximation

Abstract

Let f be a continuous real valued function defined on [−1, 1] and let En(f) denote the degree of best uniform approximation to f by algebraic polynomial of degree at most n. The supremum norm on [a, b] is denoted by ∥.∥[a, b] and the polynomial of degree n of best uniform approximation is denoted by Pn. We find a class of functions f such that there exists a fixed a ∈(−1, 1) with the following propertyfor some positive constants C and N independent of n. Moreover the sequence is optimal in the sense that if is replaced by then the above inequality need not hold no matter how small C > 0 is chosen.We also find another, more general class a functions f for whichinfinitely often.