4.1.1
The Extreme Value Theorem
x
1
x
2
Figure 4.6: 2 x
1
2 and
3 < x
2
< 3 is not closed.
x
1
x
2
Figure 4.7: 2 x
1
2 and
3 x
2
3 and (x
1
, x
2
) = (1, 2) is not
closed.
Boundedness is a simpler concept and easy to check. If you can draw a circle around S, it is bounded.
If no circle is big enough, it is unbounded.
x
1
x
2
Figure 4.8: 2 x
1
2 and
3 x
2
3 is bounded.
x
1
x
2
Figure 4.9: 2 x
1
2 is unbounded.
The examples above are a good way to visually recognize a closed and bounded set. What if we have
an equation or inequality instead of a graph? The following theorems answer some of these questions.
Theorem 4.3
If f(x) is a continuous function, then any level set or upper level set of f is closed.
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