Homework Chapter 1

Eric Regina
N00868514

Dr. Mei-Qin Zhan

October 9, 2014

1.1 The Field, Positivity, and Completeness Axioms

Problem 1
Notice that by axiom of multiplicative inverse
ba.ba/

D 1:

By the commutativity of multiplication this can be rewritten as

ba.ab/

D 1:

Multiplying on the left by the multiplicative inverse for b we get,

a.ab/

Db

Repeating this for a yields the desired result,

.ab/

Da

:


Problem 2
(i) If a 0 it follows from the second positivity axiom that either a 2 P or a 2 P .
Case 1: a 2 P
By the first positivity axiom it follows that if a 2 P then aa D a2 2 P .
Case 2: a 2 P
To prove this we should first prove that the product of two negative numbers is a positive number.
Notice that
xy C . y/.x/ D 0:
Hence, xy is the additive inverse of yx. Next, notice that by applying the distributive law we see that
. x/. y/ C . y/.x/ D . y/. x C x/ D . y/
0 D 0:
Thus, . x/. y/ is also an additive inverse of yx. It follows from the uniqueness of the additive
inverse that
. x/. y/ D xy:
With this result, it follows trivially that if a 2 P then . a/2 D a2 2 P .
For the second part of the question, we can verify that 1 > 0 by observing that 1=2 C 1=2 2 P (by the
first positivity axiom thus) and 1=2 C 1=2 D 1 2 P . Finally, 1 D 12 by the axiom of the multiplicative
identity (in the definition given on page 8 just let a D 1).
(ii) Assume that a 1 is not positive even though a is positive, then certainly a 1 is positive. Thus,
.a/. a 1 / D .a/.a 1 / D 1. This is a contradiction since a 1 is positive .a/. a 1 / D 1 is
positive, a contradiction since 1 is negative.
(iii) Notice that a > b if and only if a b 2 P . Since, c > 0 it follows from the first positivity axiom
that c.a b/ D ca cb 2 P and hence, ca > cb. For the other case, we notice that if c 2 P and
a b 2 P then c.a b/ D bc ca 2 P . Thus, bc > ac, hence ac < bc.
1


Problem 3
We prove the theorem in both directions:
) Assume that inf E D sup E but that E consists of more than one point. For simplicity, assume that
E D fa; bg where a b. Without loss of generality, assume it is the case that a < b. By definition,
it must be the case that inf E  a and that b  sup E. Since a < b, by transitivity, it follows that
inf E < sup E. This result contradicts our assumption.
( Assume that E D fpg. Since p  x for all x 2 E and there is no smaller upper bound since p 2 E,
we have p D sup E. Similarly, since p  x for all x 2 E and there is no larger lower bound since
p 2 E, we have p D inf E.

Problem 4
(i) Assume that a 0 and that b 0 but that ab D 0. It follows that
ab D 0 ) ab C bc D bc
) b.a C c/ D bc
)aCc Dc
) a D 0:
A contradiction, and thus, our original assumption was false and atleast one of a and b must be equal
to 0.
(ii) To verify the equality, we simply apply the distributive law twice getting
.a

b/.a C b/ D a.a

b/ C b.a

a.a

b/ C b.a

b/ D a2

ba C ba

a2

ba C ba

b 2 D a2

b2:

b/
b2

If a2 D b 2 then a2 b 2 D 0 and by the previous part we can deduce that .a b/.a C b/ D 0. By part
(i), this implies that a b D 0 or a C b D 0. Each equation which would imply that a D b or a D b.
(iii) E is certainly non-empty as it would contain c=2. Also, c satisfies the definitions of an upper bound,
thus, E is bounded above. Assume that x0 D sup E. If we assume that x02 > c then c would be a
smaller upper bound than x0 . If we instead assume that x02 < c then point .x02 C c/=2 (a field is closed
under addition and multiplication) would in .x02 ; c/ would would imply that x0 is not an upper bound
of E. Finally, notice that part (ii) implies that since if x 2 D c then x 2 c D 0 and hence there is some
real number y such that
x 2 c D .x y/.x C y/
p
and hence y D x or y D x. We denote this number y D c.


Problem 5
(i)
ax 2 C bx C c
b
x2 C x
a
b2
b
x2 C x C 2
a
4a


b 2
xC
2a

D0

c
additive and multiplicative inverse
a
b2
c
D 2
4a
a
b 2 4ac
D
previous problem
4a2
p
b
b 2 4ac
xC
D
previous problem
2a
2a
p
b b 2 4ac
xD
: additive inverse
2a
D

(ii) Since the solutions of the general quadratic equation are given by
p
b b 2 4ac
:
xD
2a
p
we can see that if b 2 4ac < 0 then b 2 4ac will have a no solution in R and hence, the quadratic
equation will have no solution in R either.

Problem 6
Denote E D f xjx 2 Eg. We aim to show that inf E D sup E . First notice that the completeness
axiom guarantees that inf E exists. Next, notice that since inf E  x for all x 2 E, it follows from
the elementary properties of inequalities (problem 2) that x  inf E for all x 2 E. Note that this is
equivalent to saying that y  inf E for all y 2 E . So far, we have established that inf E is an upper
bound of E . Assume that there is an even smaller upper bound of E . In other words, sup E < inf E.
It would then follow (again by the properties of inequalities) that fro all x 2 E we have x  sup E <
inf E ) inf E < sup E  x. This implication apparently showing that inf E is not the greatest lower
bound is a contradiction. Lastly, we know by the definition of a supremum, and the fact that inf E is an
upper bound of E it cannot be true that inf E < sup E . Thus, it must be the case that inf E D
sup E .

Problem 7
p
Remember that we can define jxj D x 2 . Many of these are now simply to prove.
p
p p
p
(i) jabj D .ab/2 D a2 b 2 D a2 b 2 D jajjbj.
(ii)
ja C bj2 D .a C b/2 D .a C b/.a C b/ D a2 C 2ab C b 2
jaj2 C 2ab C jbj2  jaj2 C 2jajjbj C jbj2
D .jaj C jbj/2
thus, ja C bj  jaj C jbj:
(iii) This proof requires the facts that jxj D j
jx

xj and that x  jxj. Notice that

aj < " ) x
3

a <")x <"Ca

It is also true that

jx

aj D j

.x

a/j D ja

xj < " ) a

x<")a

" < x:

By transitivity we can see that

a

" < x < " C a:



1.2 The Natural and Rational Numbers

Problem 8
N is an inductive set, thus, we start with n D 1. Since .1; 2/ does not contain 1 or 1 C 1, we will assume the
proposition for n. .n 1; n/ does not contain any natural numbers (by our inductive assumption). We see
that the next two rational numbers n and n C 1 are not contained in the set .n; n C 1/. This concludes our
proof by induction.

Problem 9
By definition of an inductive set we see that since 1 is a natural number then 1 C 1 is a natural number. Thus,
when 2 is a natural number 2 1 D 1 is a natural number. We assume the inductive case where n is a natural
number and hence n 1 is a natural. We can see that for n C 1, it must be true that n C 1 1 D n is also a
natural number as it was just established in the inductive case that n is a natural number.
For the next part we proceed by induction on m. Notice that the first part of the problem proved that base case,
that if n 2 N then n 1 2 N . We assume the inductive case for m 1 getting n .m 1/ D n m C 1 2 N.
Again by the first part of the problem it follows that n m C 1 1 D n m 2 N .

Problem 10
It follows trivially the previous problem that the difference of an two integers is also an integer. (We are
already at 37 homework problems so for the sake of brevity I will exclude the proof of this fact.) Assume
there is more than one integer in the interval n; n C 1/, call the other integer n0 such that n < n0 (it could not
be less than n otherwise it would not be in the interval). Notice that n < n0 < n C 1 ) 0 < n n0 < 1. We
know that n n0 must be an integer by the previous problem. Recall We define the set of integers, denoted
by Z, to be the set of numbers consisting of the natural numbers, their negatives, and the number 0. (page
12). Since n n0 is greater than 0, it follows that it must be in N. However, 1 is the smallest natural number
by definition, thus n n0 is not in N, a contradiction.

Problem 11
If follows from Zorns Lemma that a totally order set will have a unique maximal element. However, we can
also prove this without appealing to Zorns Lemma. Let S be a set of integers bounded above by a finite M .
Assume that S does not have have a largest element. Choose any element s 2 S . Since S does not have a
largest element, the next largest integer after s, i.e., s C 1 must be in S and must also be less than M . We
can continue this process inductively each time justifying the inclusion of the next integer by the fact the S
does not have a largest element. Since M is an upper bound of S it then follows that M must be greater than
all integers which implies that M is not finite, a contradiction.


Problem 12
p
We will utilize the fact that 2 is irrational. Let x; y be any two real numbers such that x < y. By Theorem
2 (page 12) we know that the rationals are dense in R. Thus choose a rational number r such that
y
x
p <r < p :
2
2
We can now see that

p
x < r 2 < y:
p
p
The question remains if r 2 is irrational. Assume that r 2 is rational and may be written as q=p. Since r
is rational write r as r D q 0 =p 0 . This yields
p
q0 p
qp 0
q
D 0 2 ) 0 D 2:
p
p
qp
p
This last result would imply that 2 is rational, a contradiction. Thus, our original argument succeeded in
finding an irrational between any two real numbers.

Problem 13
Choose any real number r 2 R and consider the interval . 1; r/ D E. Since R has no smallest member
we can deduce that E is non-empty. Since R has no largest element, any x 2 R such that r  x is an upper
bound on E. By the completeness axiom, sup E exists. We know that it cannot be the case that r < sup E,
as r itself is an upper bound of E. Therefore, sup E  r. It cannot be the case that sup E < r either.
If this were the case, then sup E 2 E and by the density of the reals, there would be an x 2 E such that
sup E < x < r which contradicts the fact that sup E is an upper bound. Thus, by elimination, sup E D r.
Since r was an arbitrary real number, this hold for both rational and irrational numbers.

Problem 14
We start our inductive argument on n with n D 1. For n D 1, we see that 1 C r D 1 C .1/
r. We assume
that for n the statement is true and that
.1 C r/n  1 C nr:
Notice that
.1 C r/nC1 D .1 C r/n .1 C r/  .1 C nr/.1 C r/ D 1 C .n C 1/r C nr 2 > 1 C .n C 1/r:
Thus, we have prove the argument by induction.

Problem 15
(i) The base case is verified by
12 D 1 D

1.2/.3/
6

Assuming the case for n, we see that

n
X

i 2 C .n C 1/2 D

i D1

n.n C 1/.2n C 1/
C .n C 1/2
6

n.n C 1/.2n C 1/
6n2 C 12n C 6
C
6
6
2n3 C 9n2 C 13n C 6
D
6
.n2 C 3n C 2/.2n C 3/
D
6
.n C 1/.n C 2/.2.n C 1/ C 1/
D
:
6
D

Hence the statement is true by induction.

(ii) Notice that we can use the formula 1 C 2 C


C n D n.n C 1/=2 to prove this. The base case follows
trivially, and assuming the case for n, we see that
n
X

i 3 C .n C 1/3 D

X
2
n
i C .n C 1/3

i D1

i D1


n.n C 1/ 2
C .n C 1/3
D
2
4.n3 C 3n2 C 3n C 1/
n4 C 2n3 C n2
C
D
4
4
n4 C 2n3 C n2
4.n3 C 3n2 C 3n C 1/
D
C
4
4
n4 C 6n3 C 13n2 C 12n C 4
D
4
.n2 C 3n C 2/2
D
4


.n C 1/.n C 2/ 2
D
2
 nC1

2
X
D
i :


i D1

This proves the statement by induction.

(iii) This problem has a mistake the 1 r n l should be 1 r nCl . Although the formula given is usually
presented as a algebraic identity. We will priove it by induction. Letting n D 1 we see that
1Cr D

.1 C r/.1
1 r2
D
1 r
1 r

r/

D 1 C r:

Assuming the case of n we show the equality holds for n C 1. Thus, the base case holds.
1

r nC1
1 r nC1
.1 r/r nC1
C r nC1 D
C
1 r
1 r
1 r
.1 r/r nC1
.1 r/.1 C r C


C r n /
C
D
1 r
1 r
.1 r/.1 C r C


C r n C r nC1 /
D
1 r
.1 C r C


C r n C r nC1 / .r C r 2 C


C r nC1 C r nC2 /
D
1 r
nC2
1 r
D
:
1 r


1.3 Countable and Uncountable Sets

Problem 16
We can actually construct as function that shows that N is equipotent to Z. Take
(
k
if k is even
2
g.k/ D kC1
if k is odd
2
Notice that g.1/ D 1; g.2/ D

1; g.3/ D 2; g.4/ D

2; g.5/ D 3; g.6/ D

3; : : :


Problem 17
By definition a set A is countable only if it is finite or countably infinite. In the case of A begin finite, by
definition there must an injective function from A to a subset of N. In the case of A being countably infinite,
there must be a bijection from A to N. A bijection is also a surjection, thus in both cases there must be a
one-to-one mapping from A to N if A is countable.

Problem 18
To show that N n is equipotent to N we will use an inductive proof. The base case was already proven in
corollary 4 (page 14). Thus, assuming the
case, we proceed to show the corollary hold true for
P inductive
2
n C 1. Define g.k1 ; k2 ; : : : ; knC1 / D . nC1
k
/
C
knC1 . We aim to show that g is one-to-one. Notice
i
i D1
P
P
2
that if g.k1 ; k2 ; : : : ; knC1 / D g.m1 ; m2 ; : : : ; mnC1 / then . nC1
ki /2 C knC1 D . nC1
i
D1
iD1 mi / C mnC1 and
PnC1 2
PnC1
hence . iD1 ki /
. iD1 mi /2 D mnC1 knC1 . It follows by difference of squares that
nC1
nC1
X nC1
X
X

ki C
mi

ki

i D1

i D1

iD1

nC1
X
i D1

mi D jmnC1

knC1 j

P
PnC1
It must be the case that mkC1 D knC1 otherwise j nC1
iD1 ki C
iD1 mi j would be a number larger than
jmnC1 knC1 j that divides jmnC1 knC1 j. A contradiction. The equality of the other terms follows from
the inductive step.

Problem 20

We recall that a function is bijection if and only if it is injective and surjective. To prove injective we notice
that if g f .x/ D g f .y/ then f .x/ D f .y/ since g is bijective. It then follows that f .x/ D f .y/ )
x D y since f is bijective. To prove surjective we notice that for any c 2 C there is a b 2 B such that
g.b/ D c. It follows that there must be some a 2 A such that f .a/ D b (since f is bijective). Hence we
have shown that for any c 2 C there is an a 2 A such that g f .a/ D c. We have shown that g f W A ! C
is bijective .
We now show that f 1 W B ! A is also bijective. Since f is one to one it follows immediately that f 1 is
also one to one. Assume that f 1 .b1 / D f 1 .b2 /. Thus implies that f 1 .f .a1 // D f 1 .f .a2 // (we can
make this substitution since f is bijective) and hence a1 D a2 . We have shown tat the inverse is injective.
To show the inverse in sujective we must show that for any a 2 A ther is a b 2 B such that f 1 .b/ D a.
Choose any a 2 A and notice that f .a/ 2 B is unique. Hence, f 1 .f .a// D a. Hence, the inverse is
surjective.


Problem 21
Define N D f1; : : : ; ng and M D f1; : : : ; n C mg where m  1. Both of these sets are inductive, hence, we
start our induction at 1. Since 1 is in both sets we start building our bijection (from M to N ) by mapping
1 to 1. We assume we can do this up to n. On n C 1 we notice that we cannot map n C 1 to a number in N
that was not already mapped to in the inductive assumption. Thus, the two sets are not equipotent.


1.4 Open Sets, Closed Sets, and Borel Sets of Real Numbers
Problem 24
By Theorem 7, any non-degenerate interval of real numbers is uncountable. Thus, if such an interval of the
reals were finite, then by definition it is equipotent to a subset of the natural numbers (which by Theorem 3
is countable) and thus countable; this contradicts Theorem 7.

Problem 27
The set of rationalpnumbers is not closed as it does not contain all of its accumulation points. A decimal
approximation of 2 is a set of rational numbers that converges to an irrational number but does not contain
it. Thus Q is not closed. Q is not open because every x 2 Q there is no r > 0 for which the interval
.x r; x C r/ is contained in Q (in fact no interval of R is in Q). Thus Q is not open or closed.

Problem 28
The sets of real numbers that are both open and closed are R and ;.

Problem 29
Let A D .0; 1/ and B D .1; 2/. We can see that A \ B D ;. Notice that A D 0; 1 and B D 1; 2 and
0; 1 \ 1; 2 D f1g ;:

Problem 31
We will assume that E consists entirely of isolated points. By definition for each x 2 E we can find an r
such that .x r; x C r/ \ E D fxg. Define the function f .x/ D r. The function f W E ! Q shows that
E is equipotent with some subset of Q if E is finite, or all of Q if E is infinite. Since equipotence is an
equivalence relation, it follows that E is equipotent with a subset of N or all of N. This is the definition of
a countable set.

Problem 32
(i) We know from topology (sorry, but this is much easier with topology) that there an open set can always
be written as a union of basis elements (which are open by definition) which in R are the open intervals.
Let E be some open set of R. Since each element in E must be in a basis element it follows that every
element of E is an interior point of E. Note that intE are exactly the points of E that are contained in
an open sub-intervals of E. Since E is open, it follows this is every point of E.
(ii) Assume that E is dense in R, that is, between any two elements of R there is an element of E. Notice
that for every x 2 R E there cannot be an interval .x r; x C r/ such that .x r; x C r/  R E.
If there was, this would imply that there are no elements of E between x r and x C r which would
contradict the density of E. Working in the other direction, assume that E is some subset of R such

that int.R E/ D ; but that E is not dense. If E is not dense it then follows that there is some interval
.a; b/  R such that there is no element of E in .a; b/ and thus,.a; b/  R E. Every point of .a; b/
would be an interior point of R E which would imply that int.R E/ ;, a contradiction.

Problem 33
Let F1 D R. Now, consider the following construction: (this is pretty questionable, have Dr. Zhan look at
this) For i > 1 Define each Fi as Fi D .i; 1/. We see that fFi g1
iD1 is a descending sequence of sets. Notice
1
\

Fi D ;:

iD1


Problem 35
By definition, the collection B of Borel sets of real numbers is the smallest -algebra of sets of real numbers
that contains all of the open sets of real numbers. Since B is a -algebra itself, it follows that the complement
of any set in B must also be in B. Hence, B must also be the smallest -algebra of sets of real numbers that
contains all of the closed sets of real numbers.

Problem 36
Since we have established that the collection of Borel sets B contains both the open and closed sets of R, it
follows that for a < b that the sets . 1; a/ and b; 1/ are in B. Since, the union of sets in a -algebra are
also in a -algebra it follows that . 1; a/ [ b; 1/. Lastly, since the complements of a any set in B must
also be in B, it follows that R . 1; a/ [ b; 1/ D a; b/.

Problem 37
Notice that for open intervals of the form .a; b/ we can simply take the union
1
[

a C 1=n; b

1=n:

nD1

For intervals on the form .a; 1/ we just take the union

1
[

a C 1=n; 1/:

nD1

(Notice that the interval above is in fact closed.) We use a similar construction for the case of . 1; b/.


10