Dividierte Differenzen und Monotonie von Quadraturformeln

Summary As a generalisation of divided differences we consider linear functionals vanishing for polynomials of given degree and with discrete support. It is shown that functionals of that type may be uniquely represented by a linear combination of divided differences. On the basis of this representation theorem we introduce the concept of positivity and definiteness of functions and linear functionals. Next we show that in many cases positivity follows from the number of sign changes of the coefficients of the given linear functional. These results may be applied to the problems of nonexistence of Newton-Côtes and Gegenbauer quadrature formulas with positive weights and to the monotony problem of Gauss and Newton Côtes quadrature.