Norms and Metrics, Normed Vector Spaces and Metric Spaces

Norms and Metrics,
Normed Vector Spaces and Metric Spaces

Were going to develop generalizations of the ideas of length (or magnitude) and distance. Well
generalize from Euclidean spaces to more general spaces, such as spaces of functions. We begin
with the familiar notions of magnitude and distance on the real line.
Denition: The absolute value of a number x R is |x| := max{x, x}, which we also call the
size, magnitude, length, or norm of x.
Remark: The absolute value function | | : R R
+
has the following properties:
(N1) x R : |x| 0 ;
(N2) x R : |x| = 0 x = 0 ;
(N3) x, y R : |x + y| |x| + |y| ;
(N4) R, x R : |x| = |||x| .
Our second familiar idea is the distance between two points on the line, i.e., between two real
numbers:
Denition: The distance between two numbers x and x
in R is the absolute value of their

dierence: d(x, x
) := |x x
|.
Remark: The distance function d : R R to R
+
has the following properties:
(D1) d(x, x
) 0 ;
(D2) d(x, x
) = 0 x = x
;
(D3) d(x, x
) = d(x
, x) ;
(D4) d(x, x
) d(x, x
) + d(x
, x
) , the triangle inequality.

In Euclidean space the length of a vector, or equivalently the distance between a point and the
origin, is its norm, and just as in R, the distance between two points is the norm of their dierence:
Denitions: The Euclidean norm of an element x R
n
is the number
x :=
x
2
1
+ x
2
2
+ + x
2
n
.
The Euclidean distance between two points x, x
R
n
is
d(x, x
) := ||x x
||.
Remark: The Euclidean norm function || || : R
n
R
+
has the properties (N1) - (N4); the
Euclidean distance function d : R
n
R
n
R
+
has the properties (D1) - (D4).
Denition: Let V be a vector space. A function || || : V R
+
is a norm on V if it satises
(N1) - (N4). A vector space together with a norm is called a normed vector space.
Denition: Let X be a set. A metric on X is a function d : X X R
+
that satises (D1) -
(D4). The pair (X, d) is called a metric space.
Remark: If || || is a norm on a vector space V , then the function d : V V R
+
dened by
d(x, x
) := ||x x
|| is a metric on V
In other words, a normed vector space is automatically a metric space, by dening the metric in
terms of the norm in the natural way. But a metric space may have no algebraic (vector) structure
i.e., it may not be a vector space so the concept of a metric space is a generalization of the
concept of a normed vector space.
In each of the following examples you should verify that d is a metric by verifying that it satises
each of the four conditions (D1) to (D4). For the norms on R
n
, you should draw the set of all
points in R
2
that satisfy ||x|| = 1.
Example 1: In R
n
dene ||x||
:= max{|x
1
|, . . . , |x
n
|} and dene d : R
n
R
n
R
+
as
d(x, x
) = ||x x
||
= max{|x
1
x
1
|, . . . , |x
n
x
n
|} . This is called the max-norm or sup-norm.
Example 2: In R
n
dene ||x||
1
:=
n
i=1
|x
i
| and d(x, x
) = ||x x
||
1
=
n
i=1
|x
i
x
i
| . This is
called the city block, Manhattan, or taxicab norm.
Example 3: Let X = C[0, 1] = {f : [0, 1] R | f is continuous } . Dene || || : C[0, 1] R by
||f|| := max{|f(x)| | x [0, 1]} . Note that this is well-dened as a consequence of the Weierstrass
Theorem, which says that a continuous real function on a closed interval attains a maximum. We
will introduce the Weierstrass Theorem formally a little later in the course, and generalize it to
compact sets in metric spaces. Also note that C[0, 1] is a vector space under natural denitions of
vector addition and scalar multiplication:
(f + g)(x) := f(x) + g(x) and (f)(x) := f(x).
Exercise: Show that the set C[0, 1] with the operations of vector addition and scalar multipli-
cation dened in Example 3 is a vector space.
2
Example 4: Let X = {a, b} or any other nite set. Dene d : X X R
+
as follows:
d(x, x
) :=
0 if x = x
1 otherwise .
Then d is a metric on X. This is an example of a metric space that is not a normed vector space:
there is no way to dene vector addition or scalar multiplication for a nite set.
Example 5: Let p be a real number satisfying p 1, and dene ||x||
p
on R
n
+
by
x
p
:= (|x
1
|
p
+ |x
2
|
p
+ + |x
n
|
p
)
1/p
.
This is called the
p
norm. Note that the Euclidean norm is the
2
-norm, the city block norm is
the
1
-norm, and the sup-norm is the
-norm.
Remark: If (X, d) is a metric space and S is a subset of X, then (S, d) is a metric space.
Example 6: Let V be a normed vector space for example, R
2
with the Euclidean norm. Let
C be the unit circle {x V | ||x|| = 1}. This is another example of a metric space that is not
a normed vector space: V is a metric space, using the metric dened from || ||, and therefore,
according to the above remark, so is C; but C is not a vector space, so it is not a normed vector
space. C could be replaced here by any subset of V that is not a vector subspace of V i.e., any
subset thats not closed under vector addition and scalar multiplication.
3

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Normed Vector Spaces and Metric Spaces

in R is the absolute value of their

) , the triangle inequality.

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