The most basic arithmetic mean-geometric mean (AM-GM) inequality states simply that if
and
are nonnegative real numbers, then
, with equality if and only if
. The last phrase ``with equality...' means two things: first, if
, then
(obvious); and second, if
for some
, then
. It follows that if
and
, then inequality is strict:
.
Here is a one-line proof of the AM-GM inequality for two variables:
The AM-GM inequality generalizes to
nonnegative numbers.
AM-GM inequality:
If
, then
with equality if and only if
.