-1

The question is related to my real analysis course.

How do I use the Archimidean property of $\mathbb R$ to show that for every real number $r$ there is a unique integer $n\in \mathbb Z$ such that $n-1\leq r \lt n$?

This is supposed to be a simple corollary, which I need to know for my exam, but I can't see how to prove it.

Mark Bennet
  • 100,194

1 Answers1

2

The Archimedean property is that for any $r \in R$ then there exists $n \in N$ such that $r < n$. There is therefore also $m \in N$ such that $-r < m$ and this implies that $-m < r$.

If for the first n where $r < n$ also, $n -1 \le r$ then you have found your n, i.e. $n-1 \le r < n$, otherwise, $r < n-1$. You can repeat the checking if $(n -1 ) - 1 \le r$ but within a finite number of times $n-1, -1, ...$ becomes equal to $-m$ so we are bound to find some integer between $-m$ and $n$ that satisfies the inequality.

Tom Collinge
  • 7,981
  • 25
  • 59