Show that if $f: \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}$ is a continuous injective map, then it is strictly monotonic.
Could someone give me a proof for this? I have the intuition for why it's true - I'm just having trouble expressing that intuition in a rigorous manner. Basically consider two points $x_1, x_2 \in \mathbb{R}$. By the problem statement, $f$ is continuous on $[x_1, \, x_2]$. WLOG, assume that $f$ is strictly increasing. It there exists a point where it is not increasing, then $f$ hits a value twice, and it's not injective.