Wednesday, 24 June 2015

Question regarding the Cauchy functional equation



Is it true that, if a real function f satisfies f(x+y)=f(x)+f(y) and vanishes at some k0, then f(x)=0? Over the rationals(or, allowing certain conditions like continuity or monotonicity), this is clear since it is well known that the only solutions to this equation are functions of the form f(x)=cx. The reason I'm asking is to see whether or not there's "weird" solutions other than the trivial one.



Some observations are that f(x)=f(x+k)=f(kx). f is periodic with k.



It is easy to see that at x=k2 the function also vanishes, and so, iterating this process, the function vanishes at and has a "period" of k2n for all n. If the period can be made arbitrarily small, I want to say that implies the function is constant, but of course I don't know how to preclude pathological functions.


Answer




The values of f can be assigned arbitrarily on the elements of a Hamel basis for the reals over the rationals, and then extended to all of R by Q-linearity. So (assuming the Axiom of Choice) there are indeed weird solutions.


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