Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2004 iii Paper 6 4 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Let be the Minkowski functional of :The contained ball makes absorbing, so is finite, nonnegative and satisfies . It is positively homogeneous. To check subadditivity, if and , the defining property of a convex set gives , whence ; let decrease to the respective infima. Thus is a sublinear functional. We have for every . Also : otherwise for some , which would put in because is a convex set and .
We prove the dominated form of the Hahn-Banach theorem needed here. Suppose is linear on a subspace and there. To extend it to with , choose the value at betweenEvery lower candidate is at most every upper candidate, becauseTaking among the candidates shows the two endpoints are finite: the lower supremum is at least and at most , and the upper infimum lies between them and . Define . For , the upper inequality applied to gives domination by . For , apply the lower inequality to and multiply by . At domination already holds. Hence this is a dominated one-dimensional extension.
Order all dominated extensions by inclusion of their domains. Chain unions preserve linearity and domination, so Zorn's lemma gives a maximal extension. The one-dimensional argument shows its domain is the whole vector space. This proves the requisite dominated Hahn-Banach theorem, rather than invoking an unproved separation form.
On the line , start with . For this equals ; for it is nonpositive and therefore at most . Extend it to on . ThenApplying domination to and also givesThus is a continuous linear functional, andThis proves separation from an absorbing convex set with no closedness assumption on . The proof also gives the norm-preserving real extension theorem used earlier: take when the original functional has norm at most .