[Math] Does a closed and bounded set in $\mathbb{R}$ necessarily contain its supremum and infimum

general-topologyreal-analysis

Does a nonempty closed and bounded set in $\mathbb{R}$ necessarily contain its supremum and infimum?

My thought process: Closed and bounded means compact in $\mathbb{R}$, and a continuous function on a compact set admits a minimum and maximum. The identity function is continuous, so it admits a minimum and maximum on any compact set, which must be the minimum and maximum of the compact set.

Is this valid? Is there a simpler proof/disproof?

Best Answer

The proof is correct, but it's rather non-minimal, since the extreme value theorem you use is stronger than the result you want and the proof for this specific case is easier than the proof of that theorem.

Assume the set didn't contain its supremum (which exists since the set is bounded). Since the set is closed, an entire neighbourhood of the supremum lies outside the set. This neighbourhood contains upper bounds of the set that are lower than the supremum, which is a contradiction.