For each p > 1 and each positive integer m we give intrinsic characterizations of the restriction of the Sobolev space W m p (R) and homogeneous Sobolev space L m p (R) to an arbitrary closed subset E of the real line.In particular, we show that the classical one dimensional Whitney extension operator [67] is "universal" for the scale of L m p (R) spaces in the following sense: for every p ∈ (1, ∞] it provides almost optimal L m p -extensions of functions defined on E. The operator norm of this extension operator is bounded by a constant depending only on m. This enables us to prove several constructive W m p -and L m p -extension criteria expressed in terms of m th order divided differences of functions.Integrating this inequality on J with respect to y, we obtain that |J| |∆ k G[S ]| q ≤ 2 q |J| q J |G (k+1) (x)| q dx + 2 q J |G (k) (y)| q dy.