An elementary proof of the Loomis-Whitney theorem (Q2043753)

\textit{L. H. Loomis} and \textit{H. Whitney} [Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 55, 961--962 (1949; Zbl 0035.38302)] proved a theorem related to the isoperimetric inequality: Theorem 1. Let \(m\) be the measure of an open subset \(O\) of Euclidean \(n\)-space \(\mathbb{R}^n\), and let \(m_1, \dots, m_n\) be the \((n-1)\)-dimensional measures of the projections of \(O\) on the coordinate hyperplanes. Then \(m^{n-1}\le \prod_{i=1}^n m_i\). Using the fact that any open set of finite measure can be approximated by a finite number of cubes contained in O, the proof of Theorem 1 is reduced to the following theorem: Theorem 2. Let \(S\) be a finite set of cubes from a cubical subdivision of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) space. Let \(S_i\) be the set of \((n-1)\)-cubes obtained by projecting the cubes of \(S\) onto the \(i\)-th coordinate hyperplane. Let \(N\) and \(N_i\) be the numbers of cubes in \(S\) and \(S_i\) respectively. Then \(N^{n-1}\le\prod_{i=1}^n N_i\). The idea of the present paper is to replace the cubes from Theorem 2 by their centers, and then Theorem 2 will be a special case of the following theorem proved by the author of this note: Theorem 3. Let \(U\) be a finite subset of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) and let \(U_i\) be the projection of \(U\) into the coordinate subspace \(\{ (a_1,\dots,a_n)\in \mathbb{R}^n: a_i=0 \}\). Then \(\vert U\vert ^{n-1}\le \prod_{i=1}^n \vert U_i\vert \), here \(\vert U\vert \) is the number of elements of \(U\), that is the cardinality of finite set \(U\). This is the main result of the paper whence Theorem 2 follows and therefore the result of Loomis and Whitney [loc. cit.].