Calculus & Analysis Marathon & Questions (7 Viewers)

seanieg89

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Going by memory isn't the function f(x)=x. sin(1/x) for x \neq 0 ; 0 for x=0 a case where f is differentiable everywhere but f' is not continuous at 0?
You should never go just by memory! :)

Do you believe that this is a counterexample? And if so, why?
 

InteGrand

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

And another related Q.

 
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leehuan

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

You should never go just by memory! :)

Do you believe that this is a counterexample? And if so, why?
Ouch! Maybe I meant x2 sin(1/x). Anyway here's an elementary proof





I think because f follows the same rule from the left and the right there is no need to take 1-sided limits here.





 

seanieg89

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Bingo. Haha I figured you would realise that the previous exponent wasn't good enough when you tried to work out the details.
 

seanieg89

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

And another related Q.

Doesn't my proof of existence show that f'(a)=L, the assumed limit of f'(x) as x->a? We showed the function was differentiable at a by finding it's derivative at a, which was L.
 

InteGrand

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Doesn't my proof of existence show that f'(a)=L, the assumed limit of f'(x) as x->a? We showed the function was differentiable at a by finding it's derivative at a, which was L.
Oh yeah, whoops, sorry.
 

seanieg89

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Another decent exercise with lots of different approaches is the inverse function theorem (for the purpose of this thread we will keep things single-variable, which undoubtedly opens up even more possible avenues of attack).

Suppose f:R->R is C^k (has continuous derivatives up to order k.)

Suppose further, that f'(a) =/= 0 for some real number a.

Prove there exists a neighbourhood I of a such that f: I -> f(I) is a bijection, with C^k inverse.
 

InteGrand

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon





Lol sorry if there's a flaw I'm missing it.



The purpose of this Q. was actually to show that this sort of change of variables in limits does not always work.

The last limit in fact doesn't exist (first two parts are correct :)). Can you see why?
 

leehuan

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Totally saw it coming that the informal approach was not acceptable lol

But I can't justify properly why L'H would fail. If by bait seanieg meant my use of Wolfram (y)




If I were just to stare at it, well I for one have no clue what happens when we have discontinuities at 0 on both numerator and denominator but, that's not gonna help cause we're doing limits here (Edit also I blabbered that sorry hahaha)
 
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InteGrand

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Totally saw it coming that the informal approach was not acceptable lol

But I can't justify properly why L'H would fail. If by bait seanieg meant my use of Wolfram (y)




If I were just to stare at it, well I for one have no clue what happens when we have discontinuities at 0 on both numerator and denominator but, that's not gonna help cause we're doing limits here
The "informal approach" (change of variables in a limit) actually does work if certain conditions are satisfied (which usually is the case, but isn't here).

And what was this bait thing?
 

leehuan

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Went for a search cause I have no idea and oh, the change of variable demands the function to be invertible?

The "informal approach" (change of variables in a limit) actually does work if certain conditions are satisfied (which usually is the case, but isn't here).

And what was this bait thing?
Idk I swear I briefly saw a post saying the question baited big time haha
 

InteGrand

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Went for a search cause I have no idea and oh, the change of variable demands the function to be invertible?



Idk I swear I briefly saw a post saying the question baited big time haha
Invertibility is a sufficient but not actually quite necessary condition. Might post about it later or someone else might.
 

seanieg89

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Sorry about the delay, I was skyping gf. I actually deleted my previous post about bait because I changed my mind. (My initial post was rather rushed and the edit was made shortly after.)

I do believe the limit is the same. The issue of there being a sequence of domain holes accumulating at 0 doesn't affect the usual definition of the limit.

If f is a function defined on domain D (say a subset of R^n) and p is in the closure of D, then lim f(x) =L as x->p does not require that we can find punctured balls about p that map into epsilon balls about L, it is just requires that we can find punctured balls whose intersections with D map into epsilon balls about L.

Apologies for writing this in text. Will be clearer if anything I have said is not understood.
 
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seanieg89

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

If this wasn't the case, we wouldn't be able to study concepts like continuity on objects like fractals, where no point is interior to the set.

I admit that some courses in single variable calculus might insist that f be defined in a punctured neighbourhood of the point p, but its not really a mathematical issue here and more one of definition.

If one insists that f be defined in punctured neighbourhoods of p then we cannot talk about the limit of f at the endpoints of an interval either, if f is not defined outside of the interval.
 
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InteGrand

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Sorry about the delay, I was skyping gf. I actually deleted my previous post about bait because I changed my mind. (My initial post was rather rushed and the edit was made shortly after.)

I do believe the limit is the same. The issue of there being a sequence of domain holes accumulating at 0 doesn't affect the usual definition of the limit.

If f is a function defined on domain D (say a subset of R^n) and p is in the closure of D, then lim f(x) =L as x->p does not require that we can find punctured balls about p that map into epsilon balls about L, it is just requires that we can find punctured balls whose intersections with D map into epsilon balls about L.

Apologies for writing this in text. Will be clearer if anything I have said is not understood.
If this wasn't the case, we wouldn't be able to study concepts like continuity on objects like fractals, where no point is interior to the set.

I admit that some courses in single variable calculus might insist that f be defined in a punctured neighbourhood of the point p, but its not really a mathematical issue here and more one of definition.

If one insists that f be defined in punctured neighbourhoods of p then we cannot talk about the limit of f at the endpoints of an interval either, if f is not defined outside of the interval.
Ah, I see. I was (evidently mistakenly) thinking the limit wouldn't exist (or even be meaningful to talk about), because the expression in question (the thing with the t*sin(1/t)'s) isn't even defined in any neighbourhood of 0, is it ('cos it blows up infinitely often around 0 I think).

So speaking of which, regarding your comment in the first of the quotes above, with p being in the closure of D, in this case, is it even possible to make a D for the function (the ((t*sin(1/t))^2 – 1)/(t*sin(1/t)) thing) such that p (the point 0) will be in the closure of D? Because this function isn't well-defined in any neighbourhood of 0, is it?

Basically I think the main thing surprising me is that this function (I think) blows up infinitely often around 0 but can still have a limit (but I don't know much about this so for all I know it's quite common).

Also to show the limit was 2, could you actually just use the change of variable in the limit (x = t*sin(1/t)), or did you need to do a bit more work? Because even if this limit wasn't a counterexample, I do think there are other counterexamples showing we can't just always do a change of variables like this.

Edit: oops, forgot my own Q's function, it was actually ((1+t*sin(1/t))^2 – 1)/(t*sin(1/t)) -_- .
 
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seanieg89

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Yes, D is the set of nonzero t such that sin(1/t) is nonzero. (The function is clearly defined here.) This is just the reals apart from a countable set of points t=1/k*pi, with k ranging over the nonzero integers.

You are correct that f is not defined in any neighbourhood of p=0, but that does not mean that p is not in the closure of D.

Being in the closure of D means any neighbourhood of p has nonempty intersection with D. This is indeed the case, because although D involves punching out lots of real numbers near zero, lots (uncountably many) remain. Any small ball about 0 will meet this set.

And yes, I think you can just use this change of variables, in that I claim the following:

Suppose f is a function defined on a set D in R^n, take n=1 if you like.
Suppose E is another subset of R^n and g:E->R^n is another function.

Then fog is a function defined on the g-preimage of D. (If this set is empty then it doesn't really make sense to call g a change of variables lol.)

Now if lim_{x->q} g(x)=p and lim_{x->p} f(x)=L for some q in E, p in D, L in R, then lim_{x->q} (fog)(x)=L.
 

seanieg89

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Are the counterexamples you mention counterexamples to my claim above? Or to something else? (Keeping in mind the earlier stated definition of the limit that makes sense at points that aren't necessarily interior to the domain.)
 

InteGrand

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Re: First Year Uni Calculus Marathon

Yes, D is the set of nonzero t such that sin(1/t) is nonzero. (The function is clearly defined here.) This is just the reals apart from a countable set of points t=1/k*pi, with k ranging over the nonzero integers.

You are correct that f is not defined in any neighbourhood of p=0, but that does not mean that p is not in the closure of D.

Being in the closure of D means any neighbourhood of p has nonempty intersection with D. This is indeed the case, because although D involves punching out lots of real numbers near zero, lots (uncountably many) remain. Any small ball about 0 will meet this set.

And yes, I think you can just use this change of variables, in that I claim the following:

Suppose f is a function defined on a set D in R^n, take n=1 if you like.
Suppose E is another subset of R^n and g:E->R^n is another function.

Then fog is a function defined on the g-preimage of D. (If this set is empty then it doesn't really make sense to call g a change of variables lol.)

Now if lim_{x->q} g(x)=p and lim_{x->p} f(x)=L for some q in E, p in D, L in R, then lim_{x->q} (fog)(x)=L.
Are the counterexamples you mention counterexamples to my claim above? Or to something else? (Keeping in mind the earlier stated definition of the limit that makes sense at points that aren't necessarily interior to the domain.)
Ah, thanks for those explanations! :)

Regarding the counterexample thing, the claim I think there should be counterexamples to is essentially the following (let's just stick to functions from R to R for now).

 

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