Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

The problem of weighted polynomial approximation of continuousfunctionson the real line was posted by S. Bernstein in 1924. It asks for adescription of theset of weights such that polynomials are dense in the space of continuousfunctions withrespect to the corresponding weighted uniform norm. Throughout the 20thcentury Bernstein's problem was studied by many prominent analysts includingAhkiezer, Carleson, Mergelyan andM. Riesz.In my talk I will discuss some of the complex analytic methods that can beapplied in Bernstein's problem along with a recently found solution.