Each nonnegative integrable depends on all coordinates except the th. In dimension three, Cauchy-Schwarz inequality first in the third coordinate and then in the remaining pair proves the displayed estimate. Induction integrates the last coordinate by Hölder's inequality on the first factors, then applies Hölder's inequality to the remaining factor and the dimension- product. Taking indicators of coordinate projections of a Euclidean body gives the volume version of the Loomis--Whitney inequality.
Positive numbers are the areas of the three coordinate projections of a volume-one Euclidean body exactly when . Necessity is the three-dimensional Loomis--Whitney inequality. For sufficiency take box lengths , and , and retain the union of the three slabs with first, second or third normalized coordinate at most . All three projections are full rectangles, while volume is . Choosing gives volume one. The slabs have positive thickness, so the construction uses a body with interior rather than zero-volume additions.
Equality in the three-dimensional Loomis--Whitney inequality forces a measurable body to agree up to a null set with a Cartesian product . This follows from the equality conditions in the two Cauchy-Schwarz inequalities used in its proof. If the body is connected and is a finite union of positive-volume axis-parallel boxes, each is an interval and equality up to a null set upgrades to exact equality with one box.
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The Loomis–Whitney inequality is a geometric inequality in the field of differential geometry and convex analysis. It provides a relationship between the volume of a convex body in Euclidean space and the volumes of its projections onto lower-dimensional spaces.