Caratheodory measurability criterion 2026-10-03
A set is measurable for an outer measure when every set is split additively by :The measurable sets form a sigma-algebra, and the restriction of to it is a complete measure.
Countable subadditivity of a measure Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
For measurable sets , a measure satisfiesReplace by the disjoint sets , use countable additivity, and then monotonicity. The same property is an axiom for an outer measure on arbitrary sets.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 5 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Start with a finite subcover of the compact set . Among its remaining open balls, retain one of greatest radius and discard every ball intersecting it. Repeat until no balls remain. The retained family is finite and pairwise disjoint. If a discarded ball met the retained ball , then and . Therefore, for any ,Every original ball lies in the concentric triple of one retained ball. This proves the Wiener covering lemma for the finite subcover. By Lebesgue measure scaling and subadditivity,Disjointness givesThe empty compact set is covered by the empty selection.
The spherical derivative of a measure at is the limitwhen it exists, where is the unit-ball volume. We prove that this limit is zero outside a Lebesgue-null set for the singular measure.
First derive the needed maximal estimate from the selection lemma. For a finite positive Borel measure , putThis is the uncentered maximal function of a finite measure. For , its strict superlevel set is the union of all balls with , so it is open. Cover any compact subset of this set by such balls and apply the finite Wiener covering lemma. The selected disjoint balls giveBy inner regularity of Lebesgue measure, this proves the uncentered maximal weak-type inequality
Since and are mutually singular measures, there is a Borel set with and . By regularity of finite Borel measures on Euclidean space, for each choose compact with . Define the remainder measure .
For , distance from to this compact set is positive. Thus sufficiently small centered balls avoid , andWrite for the upper limit of the ratios. If it exceeds , then either or . HenceThe right side has Lebesgue measure at most , since . This even bounds the outer measure of the left side, without a separate measurability argument for the upper density. Let , and then take the countable union over positive rational . We obtain Lebesgue almost everywhere. The ratios are nonnegative, so their lower limit is also zero andThis proves that the spherical derivative of a singular measure vanishes. It is important to approximate the null carrier by compact subsets: a null carrier can be dense, so points outside it need not have any neighbourhood avoiding it.
In one dimension, consider the cumulative distribution function . For either sign of , monotonicity gives a nonnegative difference quotient, and the relevant half-open interval lies inside . In detail, the numerator is for , while after reversing both signs it is for . ThusAt each point where the spherical derivative of a measure is zero, this bound tends to zero from both sides. The enlarged open interval avoids any endpoint ambiguity from atoms. Therefore the ordinary two-sided derivative exists andThis is why singular distribution functions have zero derivative almost everywhere without having to be constant: almost-everywhere differentiation recovers increments only under extra hypotheses such as absolute continuity of a function.