Stone-Weierstrass theorem for non-polynomials

analysiscompactnesscontinuity

Let $(X,\rho)$ be a compact metric space and let $C(X)$ be the set of the continuous real-valued functions on $X$ equiped with the maximum norm (which makes $C(X)$ a Banach Space). If a closed set subset $A\subset C(X)$ is such that:

  • $f,g\in A\Rightarrow f+g\in A$, $f\cdot g\in A$;
  • $f\in A$, $c\in\mathbb R\Rightarrow cf\in A$;
  • There is some non-zero constant function in $A$;
  • If $x,y\in X$, $x\ne y$, then there's some function $f\in A$ whith $f(x)\ne f(y)$.

Then we can conclude that $A=C(X)$. This is how the Stone-Weierstrass theorem is stated on the book Foundations of Modern Analysis by Avner Friedman (Theorem 3.7.1).

If we remove the closed hypothesis from $A$, then the closure of $A$ is $C(X)$, that is, every continuous function defined on $X$ can be approximated (uniformly) by functions from $A$. The main application of this theorem is that every function defined on a compact subset $X\subset\mathbb R^n$ can be approximated by polynomials.

My question is: Can we find a set $A$ of continuous functions defined on a compact subset $X\subset\mathbb R^n$ that has no polynomial functions, with the exception maybe of the constant ones, but still every continuous function defined on $X$ can be uniformly approximated by functions from $A$.

Best Answer

There are many. Just consider functions of hte type $p(e^{x})$ on $X=[0,1]$ where $p$ is a polynomial.

More generally consider $p(f(x))$; what conditions on $f$ do you need for this to work?

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