Wednesday, 12 August 2015

real analysis - Help Debugging a Bogus Proof

We want to prove the standard fact that a smooth function u:R2R with u=0 everywhere in some connected open set Ω is constant in that set.



I'm comfortable with the usual proof, but I also thought it could be proved the following way:



u=0  du=0



u also satisfies Laplace's equation(u=0), and hence has the mean value property.



Let x0 be any point of Ω(distinct from the origin!). For any disk Δ about x0 of radius r sufficiently small, u(xo)=12πΔu dθ




But, by Stokes' theorem Δu dθ= (as d^2 = 0, and du = 0).



This is not the correct conclusion, as u could be equal to any constant.



I think (1) must be the problematic line, but I can't see why, as d(u \space d\theta) = du\wedge d\theta - u \wedge d^2 \theta .

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