Dense Subspaces of Sobolev Spaces
Hello!
Let
. Then
is called the
-th weak derivative of
iff
\varphi(x)\,dx = (-1)^{|\alpha|} \int_{\Omega}u(x)D^{\alpha}\varphi(x)\,dx)
for all
with compact support in
.
Now for
consider the Sobolev space
of functions
which have weak derivatives
up to order
,
endowed with the norm
.
Consider also for
the subspace
in
, which consists of all real-valued m-times continuously differentiable functions on
with weak derivatives )
of all orders up to
, i.e.
.
There is a theorem which says that the closure
with respect to the norm above is exactly
for all
, so that
is the exception.
Before it is shown by example that for
one inclusion is not fulfilled it is said that
with respect to the above norm with
.
This is clear because
is complete.
The author then unexpectedly concludes that
with respect to 
While switching to m=1 he apparently simultaneously shrinks the class of functions on the left, but the norm with respect to which the closure is taken seems to have no influence. I cannot see at a glance why he has the right to do it! So the question is simply: WHY?