Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 November 2011
The inequality considered in this paper is
where N is the real-valued symmetric differential expression defined by
General properties of this inequality are considered which result in giving an alternative account of a previously considered inequality
to which (*) reduces in the case p = q = 0, r = 1.
Inequality (*) is also an extension of the inequality
as given by Hardy and Littlewood in 1932. This last inequality has been extended by Everitt to second-order differential expressions and the methods in this paper extend it to fourth-order differential expressions. As with many studies of symmetric differential expressions the jump from the second-order to the fourth-order introduces difficulties beyond the extension of technicalities: problems of a new order appear for which complete solutions are not available.