Letbe a measure space. Prove that if
is a Lebesgue integrable function, then for each
there exists a
such that
for each
with
.
Suppose on the contrary that for somethere exists, for each n=1,2,3,...,
such that
but
. Let
, where
. Then
for all n, and hence
.
On the other hand it follows from Dominated Convergence or some such theorem that. That is a contradiction since clearly |f| cannot have a nonzero integral over a null set.
The idea of this proof comes from the fact that if we define a new measureon
by
, then
. There is then a standard theorem (Theorem 30B in Halmos's Measure Theory) saying that absolutely continuous measures have this "continuity" property. I just took Halmos's proof and re-wrote it for this situation.