Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

An Analysis Of The Theory Of Functions Of One Real Variable, Robert J. Reed

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

Few undergraduates are aware that the Riemann integral taught in introductory calculus courses has only limited application-essentially this integral can be used only to integrate continuous functions over intervals. The necessity to integrate a broader class of functions over a wider range of sets that arises in many applications motivates the theory of abstract integration and functional analysis. The founder of this theory was the French mathematician Henri Lebesgue, who in 1902 defined the "Lebesgue measure" of subsets of the real line. The purpose of this project is to elucidate the theory of abstract measure spaces and of important spaces …