Math 131 - Fall, 2004, Prof. Radunskaya Homework 8: Answers 1.

Let be I be a bounded set in R, and suppose f is a uniformly continuous function from I to R. Show that f is bounded. Note: you may assume in the two previous problems that the bounded set in R is an interval. Ans: Let I R be a bounded interval, and suppose f : I R is uniformly continuous. Uniform continuity implies that 1 > 0 such that, for all a x, y I such that |x y | < , |f (x) f (y )| < 1. Take = min{1 , b 2 }. Let a < b be the endpoints of the interval I . Since I is bounded, both a and a a b are nite, so the integer N = b + 1 is nite. Let = bN < , and let x0 = a, x1 = a + , x2 = a + 2, . . . , xi = a + i, . . . , xN = a + N = b. Let M = f (x1 ) < , since f is dened on all of I (perhaps not at the endpoints, x0 and xN , though). Then, for any x I , xi x xi+1 for some i {0, 1, . . . , N }. By uniform continuity and the choice of ,
i

|f (x) f (x1 )|
n=1

|f (xn+1 f (xn )|

+ |f (x) f (xi+1 )| < i + 1

where we used the triangle inequality and the fact that each xi is at most a distance < from xi+1 , and |xi+1 x| < as well. Writing out the absolute value inequality and rearranging gives: (i + 1) < f (x) f (x1 ) < i + 1 M i 1 < f (x) < M + i + 1 f (x) B|M |+i+1 (0) Since this holds for all x I , f is bounded on I . 2. Show that there exists a bounded, continuous function from a bounded set in R to R which is not uniformly continuous. Ans: Let f : (0, 1] R be given by f (x) = sin(1/x). The interval (0, 1] is bounded since it is contained in B2 (0). Also | sin()| 1 f is bounded, and f is continuous on (0, 1] since the function sin() is continuous at all , and the function 1/x is continuous at all x = 0, and the composition of continuous functions is continuous. However, f is not uniformly continuous on (0, 1]. To show this, we need to nd an > 0 such that, > 0, x, y (0, 1] with |x y | < , but |f (x) f (y )| > . The idea is that the graph of f becomes arbitrarily steep as x approaches zero, so that the values of f go from -1 to 1 in shorter and shorter intervals. Thus, we can choose any 1 . For this N , < 2. Lets take = 1. Then, > 0, let N N, N > 2

let x =

1 1 and y = . Then we have: 2N + /2 2N + 3/2 1 1 1 |=| |< < 2N + /2 2N + 3/2 (2N + /2)(2N + 3/2) 2N

|xy | = | However

|f (x)f (y )| = | sin(2N +/2)sin(2N +3/2)| = |1(1)| = 2 > 1 = so that f is not uniformly continuous on (0, 1]. 3. Problem 31 on page 94 of Rosenlicht: Let S [0, 1] be the set of all numbers having decimal expansions of the form .a1 b1 c1 0a2 b2 c2 0 . . . where each of the ai , bi , ci are an integer between 0 and 9, inclusive. (a) Show that S is closed. Let pn S, pn p [0, 1]. Suppose p / S . Then there is some k N such that the 4k th digit after the decimal place is not 0 (otherwise p would be in S ). But this means that |p pn | > 104k1 for all n. This contradicts the claim that pn p, so therefore p S and S is closed by the proposition on page 47 in Rosenlicht. (b) Dene 1 , 2 and 3 be the functions from S R which take the element .a1 b1 c1 0a2 b2 c2 0 . . . to the real numbers .a1 a2 a3 . . . , .b1 b2 b3 . . . , .c1 c2 c3 . . . respectively. For any > 0, let 10k > 1 , and let = 104(k+1) . If |x y | < = 104(k+1) , the decimal expansions of x and y agree through the 4k th digit, so that j (x) and j (y ) agree through the k th digit, i.e. |j (x) j (y )| < 10k < . Therefore the functions j are continuous on S . (c) For i = 1, 2, 3, dene fi (x) = i (x) for all x S and for x / S , let x1 < x < x2 with x1 and x2 in S , but (x1 , x2 ) S = . For these x-values in the complement of S , dene fj (x) = j (x1 ) + j (x2 ) j (x1 ) (x x1 ). x2 x1

fj is continuous on S since j is continuous, and fj is continuous on S c since fj is a linear function on S c . Therefore, fj is continuous on all of S . (d) The function f (x) = (f1 (x), f2 (x), f3 (x)) is continuous since each component is continuous by the proposition on page 77 of Rosenlicht. For any (x, y, z ) [0, 1]3 , write x = .a1 a2 . . . , y = .b1 b2 . . . , z = .c1 c2 c3 . . . . Let S, = .a1 b2 c1 0a2 b2 c2 0 . . . , then f ( ) = (x, y, z ), so f is onto. 2

4. Determine from the denition whether the following functions converge uniformly over the given interval: x (a) , [0, ) 1 + nx The functions converge uniformly to f (x) = 0. For any > 0, let N > 1 . Then, for any n N , x (0, ), |fn (x) f (x)| = 1 1 x = < < 1 + nx 1/x + n n

so that the convergence is uniform. sin nx (b) , (, ), n The functions converge uniformly to f (x) = 0. For any N N, N > 1 . Then n > N |fn (x) f (x)| = | 1 1 sin nx | < < n n N

> 0, let

Since this inequality does not depend on x, the convergence is uniform. nx2 (c) , [0, ) 1 + nx This sequence of functions converges uniformly to f (x) = x. For any > 0 let N > 1/ . Then, for any n N and for any x [0, ), we have: |f (x) fn (x)| = |x nx2 x x 1 |=| | = < 1 + nx 1 + nx nx n

Since the choice of N didnt depend on x, the convergence is uniform. nx (d) , [0, 1] 1 + n2 x2 For each x (0, 1],
n

lim fn (x) = lim

nx 11 nx < lim 2 2 = lim =0 n n x n n x 1 + n2 x2

so that the fn converge pointwise to f (x) = 0 on (0, 1]. For x = 0, fn (x) = 0 so fn (0) 0 also. This sequence of functions does not converge uniformly. Let = 1/4. Then, for any n N, let x = 1/n [0, 1]. For this x we have: |fn (x) f (x)| = 1 1 nx 1 = > = = 1 + n2 x2 1+1 2 4

Thus, we have an > 0 for which, for any n, there is an x such that |fn (x) f (x)| > , which contradicts the denition of uniform convergence.