How statement and proof provenance work
The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.
- Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
- AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
- AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.
These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.
The Dirichlet function on has lower Darboux integral and upper Darboux integral , so it is bounded and not Riemann integrable
Statement refuted
Refuted: that every bounded function on a closed bounded interval with distinct endpoints is Riemann integrable (FALSE: every bounded function on is Riemann integrable, The lower and upper Darboux integrals of a bounded on as and , Darboux integrability as their equality, and the notation ).
The witness is the Dirichlet function restricted to (The Dirichlet function , and Thomae's function with at a rational in lowest terms with and at every irrational ). It takes only the values and , so it is bounded (Lower bound, bounded below, bounded set); every lower Darboux sum is and every upper Darboux sum is ; hence
and the function is not Riemann integrable. The two Darboux integrals are as far apart as the range of the function allows.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: with for rational and for irrational (The Dirichlet function , and Thomae's function with at a rational in lowest terms with and at every irrational ).
The refuted claim: every bounded function on such an interval is Riemann integrable (FALSE: every bounded function on is Riemann integrable).
Both and are dense in , so every nonempty open interval contains a rational and an irrational (Both and are dense in , and every nonempty open subset of is uncountable, The closure equals the set together with its limit points, equals the set of points every neighbourhood of which meets it, and is the smallest closed superset; a set is closed iff it contains its limit points, Interior, closure, boundary and exterior of a subset of , The -neighbourhood and the punctured -neighbourhood of a point of ).
For a partition of : , , , , , and is a nonempty open interval contained in (Partition of as a finite strictly increasing list , its subintervals and their lengths, its mesh, refinement, and the common refinement of two partitions, Intervals of : the nine order-convex forms, nondegeneracy, and length).
, , , ; is the supremum of the lower sums and the infimum of the upper sums; is integrable exactly when they agree (For bounded on and a partition : the infimum and supremum of on the -th subinterval, and the lower and upper Darboux sums and , The lower and upper Darboux integrals of a bounded on as and , Darboux integrability as their equality, and the notation ).
A set with a least element has it as its infimum and one with a greatest element has it as its supremum; the supremum and infimum of are both (Greatest lower bound (infimum), Maximum and minimum of a set, Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property)).
Finite sums: scaling and (Finite sums and finite products, by recursion, Laws of finite sums and finite products).
Ordered-field arithmetic: , and the order is total and transitive (Order is preserved by adding a constant and by adding inequalities, Sign rules for products and monotonicity of multiplication, Ordered field, Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property)). These order-arithmetic facts are stated by their sources for the strict order only; the nonstrict forms used below follow by adjoining the equality case, in which the two sides coincide.
Counterexample
is bounded, with for every , so its Darboux sums and integrals are defined by [L3].
Let be any partition of and . By [L2] the interval is nonempty and open, so by [L1] it contains a rational and an irrational, both lying in . Hence and, by [L4], and .
Therefore and , for every partition of , by [L3], [L5] and [L2].
The set of lower sums is and the set of upper sums is , so and by [L4] and [L3]. Since by [L6], is not Riemann integrable on .
So is bounded on , an interval with , and is not Riemann integrable: [A1] is refuted.
Remarks
-
The failure is uniform over partitions. No partition does better than any other here: for every , so Riemann's criterion (Riemann's criterion: a bounded on is Darboux integrable if and only if for every real there is a partition with ) fails as badly as it can. Contrast the Cantor-set indicator, where the gap does go to (The indicator of the Cantor set is discontinuous exactly on the Cantor set, which is null, so it is Riemann integrable with integral even though it is discontinuous at uncountably many points).
-
The Lebesgue criterion gives the same verdict for the same reason. is discontinuous at every point of (The Dirichlet function is continuous at no point of , and Thomae's function is continuous at every irrational and at no rational, so its set of continuity points is exactly the set of irrationals and its oscillation at equals ), and is not null (A sequence of intervals covering has total length at least , so no interval of positive length has measure zero), so Lebesgue's criterion for Riemann integrability: a bounded on is Riemann integrable if and only if its set of discontinuities has measure zero refuses it too. The direct computation above is kept because it is elementary and costs no choice principle.
-
The Riemann sums are not even a warning. Every uniform partition with rational tags gives Riemann sum , so along that one sequence of tagged partitions the sums converge; this is precisely why the Riemann definition quantifies over all tagged partitions of small mesh (For the Dirichlet function every uniform partition with rational tags gives Riemann sum , so the sums converge along that sequence of tagged partitions although the function is not integrable: the mesh condition of the Riemann definition quantifies over all tagged partitions and cannot be weakened to one sequence).
Depends on
- FALSE: every bounded function on $[a,b]$ is Riemann integrable
- The Dirichlet function $1_{\mathbb{Q}}$, and Thomae's function $t$ with $t(x) = 1/q$ at a rational $x = p/q$ in lowest terms with $q \ge 1$ and $t(x) = 0$ at every irrational $x$
- For bounded $f$ on $[a,b]$ and a partition $P$: the infimum $m_i$ and supremum $M_i$ of $f$ on the $i$-th subinterval, and the lower and upper Darboux sums $L(f,P) = \sum_i m_i \Delta_i$ and $U(f,P) = \sum_i M_i \Delta_i$
- The lower and upper Darboux integrals of a bounded $f$ on $[a,b]$ as $\sup_P L(f,P)$ and $\inf_P U(f,P)$, Darboux integrability as their equality, and the notation $\int_a^b f$
- Partition of $[a,b]$ as a finite strictly increasing list $a = t_0 < t_1 < \dots < t_n = b$, its subintervals and their lengths, its mesh, refinement, and the common refinement of two partitions
- Both $\mathbb{Q}$ and $\mathbb{R} \setminus \mathbb{Q}$ are dense in $\mathbb{R}$, and every nonempty open subset of $\mathbb{R}$ is uncountable
- The closure equals the set together with its limit points, equals the set of points every neighbourhood of which meets it, and is the smallest closed superset; a set is closed iff it contains its limit points
- Interior, closure, boundary and exterior of a subset of $\mathbb{R}$
- The $\varepsilon$-neighbourhood and the punctured $\varepsilon$-neighbourhood of a point of $\mathbb{R}$
- Laws of finite sums and finite products
- Finite sums and finite products, by recursion
- Lower bound, bounded below, bounded set
- Intervals of $\mathbb{R}$: the nine order-convex forms, nondegeneracy, and length
- Greatest lower bound (infimum)
- Maximum and minimum of a set
- Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property)
- Ordered field
- Order is preserved by adding a constant and by adding inequalities
- Sign rules for products and monotonicity of multiplication
Used by
Dependency tree · next 3 levels
Direct dependencies and their dependencies through the next three levels: 122 results over 27 levels. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, and this result sits at the bottom with a heavier outline. Click the chart to enlarge it.
Sources
- Dirichlet function (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)
- Riemann integral (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)
- J. Hunter, Chapter 11: The Riemann Integral (standard reference, not scraped)
- MIT 18.013A, Nonintegrable Functions (standard reference, not scraped)