Completeness Axiom and Related Properties
The Completeness Axiom or Least Upper Bound Property, is one of the fundamental properties of the real numbers. The
remaining properties are consequences of the Completeness Axiom, and you know how to deduce them from the Completeness
Axiom. These properties may seem obvious (and you can use them without further justification when doing epsilon proofs),
but they are closely tied to the real numbers, and there exist domains in which the properties fail (see Exercise 13.40 for an
example).
Completeness Axiom: Any nonempty subset of R that is bounded above has a least upper bound.
In other words, the Completeness Axiom guarantees that, for any nonempty set of real numbers S that is bounded above, a sup
exists (in contrast to the max, which may or may not exist (see the examples above). An analogous property holds for inf S:
Any nonempty subset of R that is bounded below has a greatest lower bound.
Archimedean Property: Given any real number x, there exists n ∈ N such that n > x.
In other words, this says that the set of natural numbers is not bounded (from above).
Completeness Axiom implies Archimedian Property (Proof Idea): Assume N is bounded above. By the Completeness
Axiom N must have a sup, say α = sup N. Now show that α − 1 must also be an upper bound for N, contradicting the definition
of a sup.
Completeness Axiom implies Monotone Convergence Theorem (Proof Idea): Assume a sequence {an} satisfies the
assumptions of the Monotone Convergence Theorem, i.e., is bounded and monotone, say monotone increasing. Since the sequence
is bounded, by the Completeness Axiom, it must have a sup, say α = sup{an : n ∈ N}. Now use the -definition of a sup, to
deduce that the sequence converges to α.