Uniform rational approximation on subsets of [0,\(\infty]\) (Q1103805)

The authors give an alternation theorem for characterizing the best rational approximants to functions. ``Best'' meaning in sup-norm on a subset of [0,\(\infty]\). This alternation theorem shows that in fact the best approximant can be found as the best approximant on a bounded subset \(\cup \{\infty \}\) even if the original set isn't bounded. Unfortunately, which bounded subset depends on the function and is not easy to determine. The authors also give discretization results showing that best approximations on subsets of [0,\(\infty]\) are close to best approximations on the full set, provided, naturally, that the subset has its points close together (and that the approximated function is continuous).