The Dominated Convergence Theorem
Statement
Let be measurable functions with pointwise almost everywhere, and suppose there is an integrable function (i.e. ) with almost everywhere for every . Then is integrable and .
Why is it true?
The dominating function acts as a fixed 'ceiling' of finite total mass that no can exceed, ruling out mass silently escaping to infinity — the exact failure mode that defeats naive limit-interchange arguments when there is no monotonicity to rely on.
Proof sketch
Since almost everywhere, Fatou's lemma applies: . Because , the left side equals (valid since is finite), and the right side equals .
Cancelling the finite quantity from both sides gives , i.e. .
Next, since almost everywhere, Fatou's lemma applied to gives , and cancelling again gives .
Combining the two inequalities, . Since always holds, all three quantities must coincide, so exists and equals .
Topics that use this theorem
Step-by-step proofs
No step-by-step proof yet for this theorem.
References
- Gerald B. Folland (1999). Real Analysis: Modern Techniques and Their Applications
- Donald L. Cohn (2013). Measure Theory
- Hong Wang, Joshua Zahl (2025). Volume estimates for unions of convex sets, and the Kakeya set conjecture in three dimensions · arXiv:2502.17655 [preprint, not peer-reviewed]