Jackson's theorem is a statement about the error of the best uniform approximation to a real function on by real polynomials of degree at most . Let be of bounded variation in and let and denote the least upper bound of and the total variation of in , respectively. Given the function
(1)
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then the coefficients
(2)
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of its Fourier-Legendre series, where is a Legendre polynomial, satisfy the inequalities
(3)
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Moreover, the Fourier-Legendre series of converges uniformly and absolutely to in .
Bernstein (1913) strengthened Jackson's theorem to
(4)
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A specific application of Jackson's theorem shows that if
(5)
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then
(6)
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