- #1
Ronnin
- 168
- 1
I was playing trying to work through a proof in Apostol's Calculus and can't quite understand a step noted. This is from chapter 3, theorem 1.35. Every nonnegative real number has a unique nonnegative square root. The part where you are establishing the set S as nonempty so you can use LUB it is stated that a/(1+a) is in the set S. I've seen different choices for this on other versions of this proof. When I first looked at this I figured it was in S for the reason that that would produce a square of a fraction which would produce something smaller than a. But it looks like this is then used with the binomial theorem to finish off the proof. I don't follow it. Can someone walk me through the logic in this one?