Math 540 Spring 2015

List of Challenge Problems

Challenge problems will appear occasionally on homework assignments. Such problems
can be turned in any time before the end of the semester. Challenge problems will be worth 5%
of the final course grade. You must complete and turn in at least 2/3 of the assigned challenge
problems to receive full credit for this component of the course grade.
1: (assigned on Homework 1) Construct a measurable set E [0, 1] with the property that
for every interval [a, b] [0, 1], both [a, b]E and [a, b]\E have positive Lebesgue measure.
2: (assigned on Homework 3) Let (qk )
k=0 be an enumeration of the rational
P numbers in [0, 1]
and let (ak ) be a sequence of nonnegative real numbers such that k=0 ak < . Define a
function f : R R by
(
x1/2 if 0 < x 1,
f (x) =
0
otherwise.
Let
F (x) =

ak f (x qk ).

k=0

Prove that the series defining F converges (to a finite value) for almost every x [0, 1].
However, if the coefficients ak are all positive, prove that for any interval I [0, 1], the
restriction of F to I is unbounded.
Question: Can you give other conditions on the pair of sequences (ak ) and (qk ) which
suffice to ensure that the restriction of F to any interval I is unbounded?
3: (assigned on Homework 5) [SS] Exercise 3.6.8 (page 155). Note that there is a typo in
part (b): the function f should be in L1 (R2 ).
4: (assigned on Homework 6) Let F be a compact subset of a closed interval [a, b] R. Let
R2 be the graph of the function x
7 F (x) = dist(x, F ). State and prove an explicit
formula for the length of .
5: (assigned on Homework 8) [SS] Problem 5.6.6 (pages 260261).
6: Challenge Problem: [SS], Problem 6.8.8 (page 322). For the definition of measurepreserving transformation, see page 292 of [SS]. The conclusion of this problem is important in developing the dynamic and geometric properties of continued fractions; see
Problems 9 and 10 on page 322 of [SS] for more information.