The American Mathematical Monthly

ISSN: 0002-9890 (Print) 1930-0972 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uamm20

A Unified Treatment of Various Theorems in

Elementary Analysis

Michael W. Botsko

To cite this article: Michael W. Botsko (1987) A Unified Treatment of Various Theorems
in Elementary Analysis, The American Mathematical Monthly, 94:5, 450-452, DOI:
10.1080/00029890.1987.12000664

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00029890.1987.12000664

Published online: 18 Apr 2018.

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 THE TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS
EDITED BY JOAN P. HUTCHINSON AND STAN WAGON

The Place of In x Among the Powers of x

HENRY C. fiNLAYSON,
Department of Mathematics and Astronomy, Universitv of Manitoba. Winnipeg, Manitoba,
Canada R3T 2N2

Many calculus texts introduce In x by means of the definition

·' 1
1 - dt =In x
1 t
(1)

which, they observe, fills the gap (k cannot be zero) in the set of formulas
tk
f tk- 1 dt =
k + c.
- (2)

It is perhaps worth making explicit the observation that In x is not quite so isolated
from the power functions xk jk as might at first sight seem to be the case. For the
selection of a specific set of antiderivatives in (2) yields
x xk- 1
11
tk- 1 dt = ---.
k
(3)

One would guess from (1) and (3), and verify by l'Hopital's rule that
xk- 1
lim---= lnx (4)
k-0 k .
Sketches of a few graphs of the functions fk(x) = (xk- 1)/k along with that of
In x show In x fitting in nicely among these power functions.

A Unified Treatment of Various Theorems in Elementary Analysis

MICHAEL W. BOTSKO
Department of Mathematics, Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, PA 15650

The purpose of this paper is to provide a unified approach to the proofs of a

number of theorems in elementary analysis. In addition the proofs are often
simplified by the method suggested. Our technique depends upon the following
definition and lemma from [1].

450
 THE TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS 451

DEFINITION. A collection C of closed subintervals of [a, b] is a full cover of

[a, b] if to each x E [a, b] there corresponds a number 8(x) > 0 such that every
closed subinterval of [a, b] that contains x and has length less than ll(x) belongs
to C.
LEMMA. If Cis a full cover of [a, b], then C contains a partition of [a, b], i.e.,
there exist a= x 0 , x 1, x 2 , ..• , X 11 = b such that xk-l < xk and Ik = [xk-l• xd is in
C for each k.
Proof (The proof is given in [1, p. 79] and is repeated here for convenience.)
Suppose C contains no partition of [a, b). Then by repeated bisection of [a, b],
there must be a sequence { 111 } of closed subintervals of [a, b] such that Jn ::2 J" + 1
for each n, If, I --+ 0, and C contains no partition of any ln. (ifni denotes the length
of J,,.) By the Nested Interval Theorem there exists an x in the intersection of the
sequence { 1, }. Consider 8(x) as is given by the above Definition. Since Ifni ---> 0
there exists a positive integer N so large that IfNI < 8(x). Therefore, JN belongs to
C whence C trivially contains a partition of JN, a contradiction.
We now use this lemma to prove three well-known theorems for continuous
functions.
THEOREM 1. Iff is continuous on [a, b], then f is bounded on (a, b].
Proof Let
C = {I: I is a closed subinterval of [a, b] and f is bounded on I}.
We claim that C is a full cover of [a, b]. To see this let x E [a, b]. Since f is
continuous at x, there exists 8(x) > 0 such that f is bounded on (x- 8(x),
x + 8( x )). Obviously this interval must be slightly modified if x is either a or b.
Now let I be any closed subinterval of [a, b] with x E I and 111 < 8(x). Then
I~ (x- 8(x), x + 8(x)) so that f is bounded on I and I is in C. Thus Cis a full
cover of [a, b] and the lemma implies that C contains a partition of [a, b]. Since f
is bounded on each set in the partition, f is bounded on [a, b ].
THEOREM 2 (Intermediate Value Theorem). Iff is continuous on [a, b] with
f(a)f(b) < 0, then there exists x 0 E (a, b) such that f(x 0 ) = 0.
Proof Suppose f is never 0 on [a, b] and let
C = { I: I is a closed subinterval of [a, b] and f has one sign on I } .
To show that C is a full cover of [a, b ]let x be in [a, b ]. Since f is continuous at
x and f(x)-=/= 0, there exists 8(x) > 0 such that f has the same sign as f(x) on
(x- 8(x), x + 8(x)). If I is any closed subinterval of [a, b] with x in I and
111 < 8(x), then I~ (x- 8(x), x + 8(x)). Thus f has one sign on I and I is in C.
Since C is a full cover of [a, b], C contains a partition / 1 , 12 , ..• , In of [a, b].
Assuming that these intervals are listed in increasing order, we see that f must have
one sign on [a, b ], which is a contradiction.
452 MICHAEL W. BOTSKO [May

THEOREM 3. Iff is continuous on [a, b ], then f is uniformly continuous on [a, b ].

Proof Let £ > 0 be given. Let
C = {I: I is a closed subinterval of [a, b] and lf(y)- f(z)l < £/2 for
any y and z in I}.
Using the continuity off on [a, b], it is easy to show that Cis a full cover of [a, b].
Therefore, C contains a partition I 1, I 2 , ... , In of [a, b]. Let
~ = min {I I k I : k = 1 , 2, ... , n } .
If x and y belong to [a, b] with lx- Yl < ~ then either x and y belong to the
same subinterval of the partition or to two adjacent subintervals of the partition. In
either case lf(x)- f(y)l <£which completes the proof.
We complete this paper with the proofs of the Heine-Borel and Bolzano-
Weierstrass Theorems.
THEOREM 4 (Heine-Borel Theorem). Any open cover of [a, b] has a finite
subcover.
Proof Let G be any collection of open sets covering [a, b ]. Let
C = {I: I is a closed subinterval of [a, b] and I is a subset of a set in G}.
Clearly C is a full cover of [a, b] and therefore C contains a partition of [a, b].
Since each subinterval of the partition is a subset of a set in G, [a, b] can be covered
by a finite number of such sets, and the proof is complete.
THEOREM 5 (Bolzano-Weierstrass Theorem). If Sis a bounded infinite set of real
numbers, then S has an accumulation point.
Proof Since Sis bounded there exists [a, b] such that S <::::;[a, b]. SupposeS has
no accumulation points. Let
C = { I: I is a closed subinterval of [a, b] and I n S is finite}.
Since Cis a full cover of [a, b], C contains a partition I 1, I 2 , •.• , In of [a, b]. Now
S = sn [a, b] = S n u k Ik = u k(S n Ik),
which implies that S is finite. This contradiction completes the proof of the
theorem.
Obviously there are additional theorems in analysis that could be proved by the
method of this paper. As an example one could prove without using the Mean Value
Theorem that a function with derivative identically 0 on a closed interval is constant
on that interval. The search for such theorems could be a valuable exercise for the
student.

REFERENCE
1. B. S. Thomson, On Full Covering Properties, Real Analysis Exchange, 6 (1980-81) 77-93.