An approach to F. Riesz representation Theorem

Abstract

In this note we give a direct proof of the F. Riesz representation theorem which characterizes the linear functionals acting on the vector space of continuous functions defined on a set K. Our start point is the original formulation of Riesz where K is a closed interval. Using elementary measure theory, we give a proof for the case K is an arbitrary compact set of real numbers. Our proof avoids complicated arguments commonly used in the description of such functionals.