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Someone had asked an interesting question but deleted it after one hour. Since the question is interesting, I will re-post it and submit a full solution.


Question: Let $f:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ be a differentiable function such that $f'(x)>f(x)$ for all $x\in\mathbb{R}$. Suppose that there exists $x_{0}\in\mathbb{R}$ such that $f(x_{0})=0$, prove that $f(x)>0$ for all $x>x_{0}$.

Sathvik
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2 Answers2

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Let $g(x)=e^{-x}f(x)\implies g(x_0)=0$. Since $g(x)$ is differentiable and $f'(x)>f(x),$ $$g'(x)=e^{-x}\left(f'(x)-f(x)\right)>0$$ Therefore, $g(x)$ is strictly increasing and $g(x)>0,\;\forall x>x_0$.
Also, $$f(x)=e^xg(x)>0$$ for all $x>x_0$.

Sathvik
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  • Correct, but not new. This has been asked and answered several times before. – Martin R Nov 07 '21 at 06:38
  • I was aware that the question had been asked before. This might sound silly, but every question was a special case $(x_0=0)$. But you are right, the proof is essentially the same. – Sathvik Nov 07 '21 at 06:46
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Solution:

Let $g:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ be defined by $g(x)=f(x+x_{0})$. Clearly, $g$ is differentiable and for each $x\in\mathbb{R}$, $g'(x)=f'(x+x_{0})>f(x+x_{0})=g(x)$. $g(0)=f(x_{0})=0$. We go to prove by contradiction that $g(x)>0$ for all $x>0$. Suppose that there exists $x>0$ such that $g(x)\leq0$.

Define $A=\{x\in(0,\infty)\mid g(x)\leq0\}$. Since $A$ is non-empty and bounded below by $0$, $\xi:=\inf A$ exists. Firstly, we show that $\xi=0$. Prove by contradiction. Suppose that $\xi>0$. Choose a sequence $(x_{n})$ in $A$ such that $x_{n}\rightarrow\xi$. Since $g$ is continuous and $g(x_{n})\leq0$, by letting $n\rightarrow\infty$, we have that $g(\xi)\leq0$. By Mean-Value Theorem, where exists $c\in(0,\xi)$ such that $g(\xi)-g(0)=g'(c)(\xi-0)$. Hence, $g(c)<g'(c)=\frac{g(\xi)}{\xi}\leq0$ because $g(\xi)\leq0$ and $\xi>0$. Therefore $c\in A$. However, $c<\xi$, contradicting to the fact that $\xi$ is a lower bound of $A$. This shows that $\xi=0$.

Since $\xi\notin A$, we can choose a strictly decreasing sequence $(x_{n})$ in $A$ such that $x_{n}\rightarrow\xi=0$. We have that \begin{eqnarray*} & & g'(0)\\ & = & \lim_{x\rightarrow0}\frac{g(x)-g(0)}{x-0}\\ & = & \lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}\frac{g(x_{n})-g(0)}{x_{n}-0}\\ & = & \lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}\frac{g(x_{n})}{x_{n}}\\ & \leq & 0 \end{eqnarray*} because $g(x_{n})\leq0$ while $x_{n}>0$. On the other hand, $g'(0)>g(0)=0$, which is a contradiction.