[Math] Approximation Property for Infimum

proof-verificationreal-analysissupremum-and-infimum

Could someone tell me whether I wrote the approximation property for infimum correctly and whether the proof is okay too? I based this on Apostal.

Let $S$ be a nonempty set of real numbers with an infimum $b$. Then for any real number $a>b$, there exists some real number $x$ in $S$ such that $b\leq x<a$.

The part $b\leq x$ is true by the definition of lower bounds. Assume that $a\leq x$ for all $x$ in $S$. Then $a$ is a lower bound for $S$. This forms a contradiction ($a$ is a lower bound for $S$ and $a>b$ yet $b$ is the greatest lower bound for $S$) by assuming $a\leq x$ for all $x$ in $S$.

Best Answer

Yes, you've correctly written the approximation property for infimum and your proof is also correct. Note that we need $S$ to be bounded below to have an infimum so you may want to include this condition of $S$ to the property.

Another way of writing the approximation property (using notation $\varepsilon$) is that:

If $b$ is the infimum of nonempty set $S$ then for any $\varepsilon>0$, there exists $a \in S$ such that $b \le a<b+\varepsilon$.

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