Triangle Inequality for Complex Numbers

Posted by Beetle B. on Mon 25 October 2021
\begin{equation*} \ ||z_{1}|-|z_{2}||\le|z_{1}+z_{2}|\le|z_{1}|+|z_{2}| \end{equation*}

The second inequality follows from the triangle inequality: Draw \(z_{1}\) and \(z_{2}\) as vectors and take their sum to form a triangle.

The first inequality arises from:

\begin{equation*} \ |x|=|(x-y)+y| \leq|x-y|+|y| \Rightarrow|x|-|y| \leq|x-y| \end{equation*}

and

\begin{equation*} \ |y|=|(y-x)+x| \leq|y-x|+|x| \Rightarrow|x|-|y| \geq-|x-y| \end{equation*}

Combining these two gives us the first inequality.