Math 140B - Winter 2015 - Midterm I

Problem 1.

If f : [a, b] → R is continuous, show that f is integrable.

Solution: This is proved in Rudin, page 125, Theorem 6.8.
Problem 2.

Assume that f, g : R → R are differentiable functions.

(i) Assume that for all x, y ∈ R we have

|f (x) − f (y)| ≤ |g(x) − g(y)|.
Show that |f 0 (x)| ≤ |g 0 (x)| for all x ∈ R.
(ii) Conversely, if |f 0 (x)| < |g 0 (x)| for all x ∈ R, show that
|f (x) − f (y)| < |g(x) − g(y)|
for all x, y ∈ R, x 6= y.
3 2
(iii) Let f (x) = x3 + x2 and g(x) = x2 . Calculate f 0 (x) and g 0 (x) and show that
|f 0 (x)| ≤ |g 0 (x)|
for all x ∈ (−1, 1). Nonetheless, the inequality
|f (x) − f (y)| ≤ |g(x) − g(y)|
1
is false for x = 2 and y = − 12 . Thus, the naive converse of (i) does not hold.

Solution:

(i) Since
   
 f (x) − f (y)   g(x) − g(y) 
|f (x) − f (y)| ≤ |g(x) − g(y)| =⇒ 

 ≤  x − y .
  
x−y
Taking the limit y → x yields
|f 0 (x)| ≤ |g 0 (x)|.
(ii) We use the Cauchy mean value theorem. Without loss of generality we may assume x < y.
If g(x) 6= g(y) then we can use Cauchy to conclude that there is a c such that
f (x) − f (y) f 0 (c)
= 0 .
g(x) − g(y) g (c)
Taking absolute values and using that |f 0 (c)| < |g 0 (c)| we obtain
 
 f (x) − f (y) 
 g(x) − g(y)  < 1 =⇒ |f (x) − f (y)| < |g(x) − g(y)|.
 

If g(x) = g(y) then we can find c between x and y such that g 0 (c) = 0. This is impossible
since then the assumption will imply |f 0 (c)| < |g 0 (c)| = 0.
(iii) We have f 0 (x) = x2 + x, g 0 (x) = 2x. We compute using the triangle inequality that
|f 0 (x)| = |x2 + x| ≤ |x2 | + |x| ≤ |x| + |x| = |g 0 (x)|
where we used |x|2 ≤ |x| since x ∈ (−1, 1). However for x = − 21 , y = 12 , we have f (x) =
1 1 1
12 , f (y) = 6 , g(x) = g(y) = 4 so |f (x) − f (y)| > 0 = |g(x) − g(y)|.
 Problem 3.

Assume f : [0, 1] → R be a function bounded by M , that is |f (x)| ≤ M for all x ∈ [0, 1].

(i) Show that for any x, y ∈ [0, 1] we have

|f (x)2 − f (y)2 | ≤ 2M |f (x) − f (y)|.

(ii) Let P be any partition of [0, 1]. Conclude from (i) that

U (P, f 2 ) − L(P, f 2 ) ≤ 2M (U (P, f ) − L(P, f )) .

(iii) Show that if f is Riemann integrable then f 2 is also Riemann integrable.

Extra credit. By mean of an example, show that the converse of (iii) is false.

Solution:

(i) We have

|f (x)2 − f (y)2 | = |f (x) − f (y)| · |f (x) + f (y)| ≤ 2M |f (x) − f (y)|.

Here we used that

|f (x) + f (y)| ≤ |f (x)| + |f (y)| ≤ 2M.
(ii) Let P be any partition x0 ≤ x1 ≤ . . . ≤ xn of the interval [0, 1]. We let

mi = inf f (x), Mi = sup f (x)

x∈[xi−1 ,xi ] x∈[xi−1 ,xi ]

and similarly

m0i = inf f (x)2 , Mi0 = inf fx∈[xi−1 ,xi ] f (x)2 .

x∈[xi−1 ,xi ]

By part (i), we have that

(1) Mi0 − m0i ≤ 2M (Mi − mi ).

As a result, we confirm that

X X
U (P, f 2 ) − L(P, f 2 ) = (Mi0 − m0i )∆xi ≤ 2M (Mi − mi )∆xi = 2M (U (P, f ) − L(P, f )).
i i

Remark: To justify (1), note that if x, y ∈ [xi−1 , xi ] then

mi ≤ f (x) ≤ Mi , mi ≤ f (y) ≤ Mi =⇒ |f (x) − f (y)| ≤ Mi − mi .

In consequence, by (i) we have

|f (x)2 − f (y)2 | ≤ 2M (Mi − mi ).

Therefore,
f (x)2 ≤ f (y)2 + 2M (Mi − mi )
 so that taking sups over x, while keeping y fixed, we obtain
Mi0 ≤ f (y)2 + 2M (Mi − mi ).
From here, taking infs over y, we conclude
Mi0 ≤ m0i + 2M (Mi − mi ) =⇒ Mi0 − m0i ≤ 2M (Mi − mi ),
as claimed.
(iii) Fix  > 0. Since f is integrable, by Riemann’s criterion, we can find a partition P such
that

U (P, f ) − L(P, f ) < .
2M
By part (ii) we conclude that

U (P, f 2 ) − L(P, f 2 ) ≤ 2M (U (P, f ) − L(P, f )) < 2M · = .
2M
By Riemann’s criterion again, f 2 must be integrable.

Extra credit. Consider the function f : [0, 1] → R

(
−1 if x ∈ Q
f (x) = .
1 if x ∈ R \ Q
Clearly f 2 = 1 is integrable over [0, 1]. However, f itself is not integrable. Indeed, for any
partition P the lower sums of
L(f, P ) = −1, U (f, P ) = 1.
That is because any interval of the partition [xi−1 , xi ] contains a rational number and an
irrational number as well, so the inf and the sup are −1 and 1 respectively over each partition
subinterval. Thus
U (P, f ) − L(P, f ) = 2
in contradiction to Riemann’s criterion.