It seems that there are three basic ways to prove an inequality eg $x>0$.

1. Show that x is a sum of squares.
2. Use an entropy argument. (Entropy always increases)
3. Convexity.

Are there other means?

Edit: I was looking for something fundamental. For instance Lagrange multipliers reduce to convexity. I have not read Steele's book, but is there a way to prove monotonicity that doesn't reduce to entropy? And what is the meaning of positivity?

Also, I would not consider the bootstraping method, normalization to change additive to multiplicative inequalities, and changing equalities to inequalities as methods to prove inequalities. These method only change the form of the inequality, replacing the original inequality by an (or a class of) equivalent ones. Further, the proof of the equivalence follows elementarily from the definition of real numbers.

As for proofs of fundamental theorem of algebra, the question again is, what do they reduce too? These arguments are high level concepts mainly involving arithmetic, topology or geometry, but what do they reduce to at the level of the inequality?

It seems that there are three basic ways to prove an inequality eg $x>0$.

1. Show that x is a sum of squares.
2. Use an entropy argument. (Entropy always increases)
3. Convexity.

Are there other means?

Edit: I was looking for something fundamental. For instance Lagrange multipliers reduce to convexity. I have not read Steele's book, but is there a way to prove monotonicity that doesn't reduce to entropy? And what is the meaning of positivity?

Also, I would not consider the bootstraping method, normalization to change additive to multiplicative inequalities, and changing equalities to inequalities as methods to prove inequalities. These method only change the form of the inequality, replacing the original inequality by an (or a class of) equivalent ones. Further, the proof of the equivalence follows elementarily from the definition of real numbers.

As for proofs of fundamental theorem of algebra, the question again is, what do they reduce too? These arguments are high level concepts mainly involving arithmetic, topology or geometry, but what do they reduce to at the level of the inequality?

Further edit: Perhaps I was looking too narrowly at first. Thank you to all contributions for opening to my eyes to the myriad possibilities of proving and interpreting inequalities in other contexts!!

It seems that there are three basic ways to prove an inequality eg $x>0$.

1. Show that x is a sum of squares.
2. Use an entropy argument. (Entropy always increases)
3. Convexity.

Are there other means?

It seems that there are three basic ways to prove an inequality eg $x>0$.

1. Show that x is a sum of squares.
2. Use an entropy argument. (Entropy always increases)
3. Convexity.

Are there other means?

Edit: I was looking for something fundamental. For instance Lagrange multipliers reduce to convexity. I have not read Steele's book, but is there a way to prove monotonicity that doesn't reduce to entropy? And what is the meaning of positivity?

Also, I would not consider the bootstraping method, normalization to change additive to multiplicative inequalities, and changing equalities to inequalities as methods to prove inequalities. These method only change the form of the inequality, replacing the original inequality by an (or a class of) equivalent ones. Further, the proof of the equivalence follows elementarily from the definition of real numbers.

As for proofs of fundamental theorem of algebra, the question again is, what do they reduce too? These arguments are high level concepts mainly involving arithmetic, topology or geometry, but what do they reduce to at the level of the inequality?