# Proof of Pinsker's inequality.

How to prove the following known (Pinsker's) inequality?

For two strictly positive sequences $(p_i)^n_{i=l}$ and $(q_i)^n_{i=l}$ with $\sum_{i=1}^np_i=\sum_{i=1}^nq_i=1$ one has $$\sum_{i=1}^np_i\log\frac{p_i}{q_i}\ge \frac{1}{2}\left(\sum_{i=1}^n|p_i-q_i|\right)^2.$$

• Retagged due to the relation to Kullback-Leibler_divergencecomments may only be edited for 5 minutes(click on this box to dismiss) – Ilya Apr 4 '12 at 13:14
• If it is known, does it have a name? Where did you find it and was a reference to a proof missing? – Aryabhata Apr 4 '12 at 17:15
• @Aryabhata yes it is known. Pinsker's inequality: mathoverflow.net/questions/42667/… – Kolmo Apr 4 '12 at 18:35
• @Kolmo: Please add an answer. Also, my point was OP knows it is known, and if OP knew the name, they could have done some research before posting it here. – Aryabhata Apr 4 '12 at 18:51
• Check also Beck & Teboulle 2003, "Mirror descent and nonlinear projected subgradient methods for convex optimization", Proposition 5.1 for elementary proof of a weaker inequality with symmetrized KL-divergence. – ostrodmit Sep 15 '15 at 9:51