Proof. Maximum of the closure is equal to the supremum of the set

elementary-set-theorygeneral-topologyproof-verificationproof-writing

The exercise is:

Show that if $A \subset \mathbb{R} $ is bounded and $ A \neq \varnothing $ then $sup(A)=max(\overline{A} ).$

Now, I wanted to ask you whether my proof is watertight:


Let $A \subset \mathbb{R}$ be a non-empty and bounded set.

Then $A$ has a finite supremum $sup(A) \equiv \widetilde{x}$, which is
the least upper bound on $A$.

Further define $\overline{x} \equiv max(\overline{A} )$.

Assume, for the sake of contradiction, that $\overline{x} \neq
\widetilde{x}$
, which implies that there exists a distance $
d(\overline{x}, \widetilde{x} ) \equiv \epsilon > 0$
. Given that
$\widetilde{x} \geq x, \forall x \in A,$ we have that $B_{\epsilon /2}
(\overline{x}) \cap A = \varnothing $
.

This is a contradiction of the definition of closure.

Therefore, $sup(A)=max(\overline{A} )$.

Best Answer

"Further define $\overline{x}=max(\overline{A})$." This is not allowed, as you need to prove that this is well-defined. Not every set has a maximum. Since the standard proof of this is done by showing that it equals the supremum, you end up in a circular reasoning.

Some hints for how you should do this: Show that $\tilde x:=\sup{A}\in\overline{A}$ and that $x\leq \tilde x$ for all $x\in\overline{A}$.