On the spans of polynomials and their derivatives

We prove that a majorization-type relation among the root sets of three polynomials implies that the same relation holds for the root sets of their derivatives. We then use this result to give a unified derivation of the classical results due to Sz.-Nagy, Robinson, Meir and Sharma which relate the span of a polynomial to the spans of its first or higher derivatives. We also show how this relation can be generated by interlacing polynomials.  2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved