How could I prove this? Would this be using a theorem from real analysis?

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2 Answers
May 17, 2018

"Use the definition of derivative :"

f'(x) = lim_{h->0} (f(x+h) - f(x))/h

"Here we have"

f'(x_0) = lim_{h->0} (f(x_0 + h) - f(x_0))/h
g'(x_0) = lim_{h->0} (g(x_0 + h) - g(x_0))/h

"We need to prove that"

f'(x_0) = g'(x_0)
"or"
f'(x_0) - g'(x_0) = 0
"or"
h'(x_0) = 0
"with "h(x) = f(x) - g(x)
"or"
lim_{h->0} (f(x_0 + h) - g(x_0 +h) - f(x_0) + g(x_0))/h = 0
"or"
lim_{h->0} (f(x_0 + h) - g(x_0 + h))/h = 0
"(due to "f(x_0) = g(x_0)")"

"Now"

f(x_0 + h) <= g(x_0 + h)
=> lim <= 0 " if "h>0" and "lim >= 0" if "h < 0

"We made the assumption that f and g are differentiable"
"so "h(x) = f(x) - g(x)" is also differentiable,"
"so the left limit must be equal to the right limit, so"

=> lim = 0
=> h'(x_0) = 0
=> f'(x_0) = g'(x_0)

May 18, 2018

I will provide a quicker solution than the one in https://socratic.org/s/aQZyW77G. For this we will have to rely on some familiar results from calculus.

Explanation:

Define h(x) = f(x)-g(x)

Since f(x)\le g(x), we have h(x) le 0

At x=x_0 , we have f(x_0) = g(x_0), so that h(x_0) = 0

Thus x=x_0 is a maximum of the differentiable function h(x) inside the open interval (a,b). Thus

h^'(x_0) = 0 implies

f^'(x_0)-g^'(x_0) implies

f^'(x_0) = g^'(x_0)