Calculus – Proof of Intermediate Value Theorem

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Intermediate Value Theorem

The idea of the proof is to look for the first point at which the graph of f crosses the axis.
Let X = {x ∈ [a, b] | f (y) ≤ 0 for all y ∈ [a, x]}. Then X is non-empty since a ∈ X and X ⊆ [a, b] so it is bounded. Hence by the Completeness Axiom, X has a least upper bound α (say).
We claim that f (α) = 0.

how can be written it formal?

Best Answer

First of all note that the ideas in your question constitute almost 99% of the proof and handle the most difficult parts of the proof. And the remaining part of the proof is obtained by getting contradictions for assumptions $f(c) > v$ and $f(c) < v$ forcing us to conclude that $f(c) = v$. The contradiction follows from the following local property of continuous functions (it also goes by the name of sign preserving property):

If $f$ is continuous at $a$ and $f(a) \neq 0$ there is a neighborhood of $a$ in which $f$ maintains the same sign as that of $f(a)$.

This is an important but easy consequence of definition of continuity and I hope you can prove this by yourself.

Now consider your question and assume that $f(c) > v$. Then using the above sign preserving property we can prove that there is a neighborhood $I$ of $c$ such that all values of $f$ in $I$ are greater than $v$. Since $x_{n} \leq c \leq y_{n}$ and $$\lim_{n \to \infty}x_{n} = \lim_{n \to \infty}y_{n} = c$$ it follows that there is a value of $n$ for which $[x_{n}, y_{n}] \subseteq I$ and since $f(y_{n}) \leq v$ gives us a contradiction (as $y_{n} \in I$ and hence $f(y_{n}) > v$).

Update: The question has changed and the given answer corresponds to original version where it is asked to establish intermediate value theorem via the use of the Nested interval principle.

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