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Practice Problems 1: The Real Number System

This document contains practice problems related to the real number system. It includes problems about proving properties of real numbers, finding supremums and infimums of sets, and properties related to the least upper bound axiom. Some key points proven are: - If x0 is a non-negative real number such that x0 is less than every positive real number, then x0 must equal 0. - The set of rational numbers whose square is less than 2 is bounded above but does not have a least upper bound in the rational numbers. - For any non-empty bounded above subset S of real numbers, the infimum of the set -S (which contains the negatives of elements in S) is equal to

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43 views

Practice Problems 1: The Real Number System

This document contains practice problems related to the real number system. It includes problems about proving properties of real numbers, finding supremums and infimums of sets, and properties related to the least upper bound axiom. Some key points proven are: - If x0 is a non-negative real number such that x0 is less than every positive real number, then x0 must equal 0. - The set of rational numbers whose square is less than 2 is bounded above but does not have a least upper bound in the rational numbers. - For any non-empty bounded above subset S of real numbers, the infimum of the set -S (which contains the negatives of elements in S) is equal to

Uploaded by

monu991
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Practice problems 1: The Real Number System


1. Let x0 R and x0 0. If x0 < for every positive real number , show that x0 = 0.

2. Prove Bernoullis inequality: for x > 1, (1 + x)n 1 + nx for all n N. 3. Let E be a non-empty bounded above subset of R. If and are supremums of E , show that = . 4. Suppose that and are any two real numbers satisfying < . Show that there exists 1 n N such that < + n < . Similarly, show that for any two real numbers s and t 1 < t. satisfying s < t, there exists n N such that s < t n 5. Let A be a non-empty subset of R and R be an upper bound of A. Suppose for every 1 n N, there exists an A such that an n . Show that is the supremum of A. 6. Find the supremum and inmum of the set
m |m|+n

: n N, m Z .

7. Let E be a non-empty bounded above subset of R. If R is an upper bound of E and E , show that is the l.u.b. of E . 8. Let x R. Show that there exists an integer m such that m x < m + 1 and an integer l such that x < l x + 1. 9. Let A be a non empty subset of R and x R. Dene the distance d(x, A) between x and A by d(x, A) = inf {|x a| : a A}. If R is the l.u.b. of A, show that d(, A) = 0. 10. (*)
1 2 (a) Let x Q and x > 0. If x2 < 2, show that there exists n N such that (x + n ) < 2. 1 2 2 Similarly, if x > 2, show that there exists n N such that (x n ) > 2.

(b) Show that the set A = {r Q : r > 0, r2 < 2} is bounded above in Q but it does not have the l.u.b. in Q. (c) From (b), conclude that Q does not posses the l.u.b. property. (d) Let A be the set dened in (b) and R such that = sup A. Show that 2 = 2. 11. (*) For a subset A of R, dene A = {x : x A}. Suppose that S is a nonempty bounded above subset of R. (a) Show that S is bounded below. (b) Show that inf(S ) = sup(S ). (c) From (b) conclude that the l.u.b. property of R implies the g.l.b. property of R and vice versa. 12. (*) Let k be a positive integer and x = k . Suppose x is rational and x = m n such that m Z and n is the least positive integer such that nx is an integer. Dene n = n(x [x]) where [x] is the integer part of x. (a) Show that 0 n < n and n x is an integer. (b) Show that n = 0. (c) From (a) and (b) conclude that k is either a positive integer or irrational.

Hints/Solutions
1. Suppose x0 = 0. Then for
0

x0 2 ,

x0 >

> 0 which is a contradiction.

2. Use Mathematical induction. 3. Since is a l.u.b. of E and is an u.b. of E , . Similarly . 4. Since > 0, by Archimedian property, there exists n N such that n >
1 .

5. If is not the l.u.b then there exists an u.b. of A such that < . Find n N such that 1 1 . Since an A such that n < an , is not an u.b. which is a contradiction. < n 6. sup = 1 and inf = -1. 7. If is not the l.u.b. of E , then there exists an u.b. of E such that < . But E which contradicts the fact that is an u.b. of E . 8. Using the Archimedian property, nd m, n N such that m < x < n. Let [x] be the largest integer between m and n such that [x] x. So, [x] x < [x] + 1. This implies that x < [x] + 1 x + 1. Take l = [x] + 1. ([x] is called the integer part of x). 9. If d(, A) > 0, then nd R such that 0 < < d(, A). So a > for all a A. That is a < for all a A. Hence is an u.b. of A which is contradiction.
1 2 1 x 10. (a) Suppose x2 < 2. Observe that (x + n ) < x2 + n + 2 n for any n N. Using the 1 x Archimedian property, nd n such that x2 + n +2 n < 2. This n will do.

(b) Note that 2 is an u.b. of A. If m Q such that m = sup A, then there are three possibilities: i. m2 < 2 ii. m2 = 2 iii. m2 > 2. Using (a) show that this is not possible. (c) The set A dened in (b) is bounded above in Q but does not have the l.u.b. in Q. (d) Using (a), justify that the following cases cannot occur: (i) 2 < 2 and (ii) 2 > 2. 11. (a) Trivial. (b) Let = sup S . We claim that = inf(S ). Since = sup S , a for all a S . This implies that a for all a S . Hence is a l.b. of S . If is not the g.l.b.of S then there exists a lower bound of A such that < . Verify that is an u.b. of S and < which is a contradiction. (c) Assume that R has the l.u.b. property and S is a non empty bounded below set. Then from (b) or the proof of (b), we conclude that inf S exists and is equal to sup(S ). 12. Trivial.

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