Prove the following inequalities using the mean value theorem:
-
.
-
, for
.
- Proof. Define
and
. Then
and
are continuous and differentiable everywhere so we may apply the mean value theorem. We obtain
The final step follows since
for all
- Proof. Let
,
, then
and
. So, by the mean-value theorem we have there exists a
such that,
But, since
is an increasing function on the positive real axis, and we have
we know
Further, since
and
is positive we can multiply all of the terms in the equality by
without reversing inequalities to obtain,
Therefore, substituting
from above we obtain the requested inequality:
if we have that c is in (y,x), then x<c<y right?
why it is written x<=c<=y ?
I’m pretty sure you’re right, but for the inequality y^{n-1} <= c^{n-1} \<= x^{n-1}, I think we have to have <= signs because n could equal one (even though we know n is strctly between x and y), so we still end up with less than or equal to signs in the solution