This lecture.

The definition of and topics related to the

important concept of Continuity.
The definition and first examples.
Important classes of continuous functions:
Polynomials
Rational functions
Trigonometric functions
Exponential functions
Using elementary operations to build new
continuous functions from other continuous
functions.
Continuous functions and limits. Compositions.
The Intermediate Value Theorem.

An observation
Weve been thinking a lot about limits recently.
Example. What is ?
Solution.
First consider the
denominator:

(By the limit law for

sums.)
(By the limit law for
products.)
(By the limit law for simple
fns.)

Next consider the numerator. In the same way, we

deduce:

An observation
Example. What is ?
Solution (cont.)
So, because:

exists,
exists and is not equal to zero,

we can apply the limit law for quotients to conclude that:

exists and equals

Heres the observation:

Hang on That was a lot of work just to derive the answer .

Couldnt we have gotten this answer just by substituting

directly into the function ??? Whats the point of all this limit
stuff?

Continuity
Its true that for many functions we can obtain the limit just

by evaluating the function at the point we are taking the

limit: .
But these are actually very special types of functions: the
continuous functions.
Definition (Continuous at ).

Let be a function and let .

The function is said to be continuous
at the point if the following three
things are true:
1.
2. The limit exists.
3.

Continuity
Definition
(Continuous at ).

Let be a function and let .

The function is said to be continuous at the
point if the following three things are true:
1.

The limit exists.

2.
3.

A few comments:

Often we summarize these three conditions by a single

equation: .

This equation is sometimes called the direct substitution

property.

The intuitive idea of a continuous function is that the

graph can be drawn without lifting the pen off the paper.
Or a small change in away from only leads to a small

Continuity: An example
Note

that both of the following functions have limits

at .
However:

Exercise:
Use the definition of continuity and standard properties of

limits to show that the function is continuous at the point .

Solution:

Summary:
Because:

1. The limit of at exists.

2. The limit equals the value of at .
We conclude that is continuous at .

function can fail to be continuous in several different ways...

This
function is not continuous at because

the right 1-sided limit, , does not exist.

Essential discontinuity.

This function is not continuous at

because
even though the one sided limits both
exist, they
Jump discontinuity.

are not equal.

This function is not continuous at

because
even though the function does actually
have a limit
Removeable discontinuity.

at , the actual value of the function there

Most elementary functions are continuous.

Theorem.

Polynomial
functions are continuous at every point .

Proof.
To begin, note that an arbitrary polynomial function is of

the form:
for some constants .
The version of this expression we will use during the proof is: .

w according
to the definition of continuous at we have three things to

1. The point lies in the domain of .

2. The limit exists.
3. And:

Theorem.

Polynomial
functions are continuous at every point .

Proof (continued).
The domain of any polynomial function is all of , so it is

obvious that will lie in the domain of the given .

Next consider the limit:

(By the limit law for

sums.)
(By the limit law for
products.)

(By the limit laws for

simple fns.)

Thus the limit exists, and equals , as required by the

ome important classes of continuous functions.

Properties of continuous functions.

Were going to look at a few topics here:
1. Ways to combine continuous functions to
construct new continuous functions.
2. How continuous functions interact with
limits. Compositions of continuous
functions.
3. One-sided continuity. Continuity on an
interval.
4. The intermediate value theorem.

Combining continuous functions.

The general principle:
Any function constructed from continuous functions by doing
additions, multiplications, and divisions, is itself going to be
continuous at every point of its domain.
Example:
If ,, and are functions which are continuous at each point of

their domains, then the following function is also continuous at

each point of its domain:

Why?

This is essentially because of the limit laws.

Combining continuous functions.

Exercise
Consider two functions: and .

Assume that both of and are continuous at some point .

Explain why the function is also continuous at the point .
Solution
To begin, well write down explicitly the information we know

already about and :

About :

1. .

About :

1. .

To explain why is also continuous at we have to answer the

same 3 questions about , using this information.

Solution (continued)
About :

1) .

About :

a) .

Question Why is ?
1.

According
to (1) and (a) above, lies in both and .
So , which is exactly .
Why does the limit exist?
Question
2.
We can apply the limit law for sums to this limit, because
(2) and (b) above tell us that the assumptions of this law are
satisfied.
Why is ?
Question
3.

(By the limit law for

sums.)

(By (3) and

ontinuous functions, limits, and compositions

Question
Consider two functions: and .

Is the following equation always true?

Maybe we just need to assume that exists?
Illustrate your answer with an example.
Answer
No, its definitely not true.

For example, consider: and .

.

ontinuous functions, limits, and compositions (cont.)

But it turns out that this equation is actually true, with one

extra assumption about :

Theorem (You can pass limits into

continuous functions).
Let and be functions and let .
Assume that:
exists.
is continuous at .
Then:

ontinuous functions, limits, and compositions (cont.)

Exercise
What is

Solution
Earlier in this lecture we stated that trigonometric functions
are continuous functions at every point of their domains.
(Well prove this later on.)
This means that we can exploit the theorem we just
introduced to pass the limit operation into the function :

(Because is continuous at .)

ontinuous functions, limits, and compositions (cont.)

Another way to formulate the theorem that we just met is as
follows:
Theorem (Composition of continuous

functions is continuous).
Let and be functions and let .
Assume that:
is continuous at .
is continuous at .
Then is continuous at .
Exercise.
On this weeks problem set you will be asked to show that
this version is exactly equivalent to the theorem we met a
few slides ago.

ontinuous functions, limits, and compositions (cont.)

Problem.
At what points is the function continuous?

Solution.
Well begin by understanding the domain of .

Note that it is a composition of two functions:

with domain .
with domain .
We deduce in the standard way that the domain of is .
Now observe that:

is continuous at every point.

is continuous at every point except and .

It follows from the previous theorem that is continuous at

every point of , which is the whole domain of .

Functions can be continuous from one

side.
Question.

Is the function continuous at the point ?

Here is the graph:

Answer.

According to our intuition for the concept

continuous, this function should be continuous at ,

but it actually isnt according to the definition we
have so far. Why?

Question.
Why is the function not continuous at according to the

following definition?
Definition (Continuous function).

Let be a function and let .

The function is said to be continuous
at the point if the following three
things are true:
1. The limit exists.
2.
3.
Answer: According to our definition

of limit, for a limit to exist at the

function must be defined on both
sides of . But at the function is only
defined to the right.

We invent some new concepts to include situations like this in

our discussion.
Definition (Continuous from the right).
Let be a function and let .
The function is said to be continuous from the right at
the point if
1. exists.
2. .
And:
Definition (Continuous from the left).

Let be a function and let .

The function is said to be continuous from the left at the
point if
1. exists.
2. .

Example.

The function is continuous from the right at the point .

Question. Consider a function whose graph is:

At what points is

1. Continuous.
2. Continuous from the
right.
3. Continuous from the

Answer:

1.

Continuity on an
interval
Thus far we have only been discussing continuity properties at
a single point.
Functions which are continuous at every point of a whole
interval have some really nice properties. To discuss these
properties precisely it is useful to introduce another definition,
Definition (Continuous on an interval).
which
is a little bit unnatural, unfortunately.
Let be a function.
Consider an interval . (Note that by interval we are
including all of the following possibilities: , , , , , , , and so
on.)
We say that is continuous on if it is continuous at every
point , according to the interpretation of continuous at the
endpoints clarified below:

At the boundary points of the form if is only defined on

the right of , then continuous means continuous from
the right.
At the boundary points of the form if is only defined on

Exercise.
Name some
intervals on
which the
function
graphed here is
continuous:
Answers.
There are

countless
answers
actually.

The intermediate value

theorem
Example.
Consider a function with domain whose graph is shown below.

I have concealed part of the graph under a box.

Question.
If I tell you that at no point does the graph of intersect the line

then what can you conclude?

Answer.
The function cannot be continuous on the whole interval .

The intermediate value

theorem
This observation we just made is actually an important
theorem:

Theorem
(The intermediate value
theorem).
Let be a function, and let , , and be real
numbers with .
Assume that:

is continuous on the closed

interval .
.
lies between and .
Then: there exists a number such that:

In particular,

must be
continuous from
the right at and
continuous from
the left at .

Theorem
(The intermediate value

theorem).
Let be a function, and let , and be real
numbers.
Assume that:

is continuous on the closed interval .

lies between and .

Then: there exists a number such that:

Question.

This seems obvious when you think about it. Whats

the point?

Comments

The I.V.T. is a statement that has enough numbers to solve

certain types of equations.
The I.V.T. actually reflects a deep property of , known as the
completeness axiom. This axiom is the only difference in the
lists of axioms of and .
The I.V.T. seems obvious from an intuitive point of view, but
when we are building up a mathematical theory from logical
foundations, even obvious things need to be proved before we
completely understand the theory. For example, if we couldnt

The I.V.T:
examples.
Example.
Prove

that there exists at least one solution to the

equation:
Solution.
Define
Any

a function

point where will be a solution of the given equation.

Well

try and apply the Intermediate Value Theorem to on

the closed interval to show that such a must exist.
The first thing we need to do, then, is check whether the
assumptions of the theorem are satisfied.

Solution (continued).
Question

1: Is continuous on the interval ?

Yes.

We have two cases to check.

At the function is only defined on the right, so at that point
to check continuity we have to test a limit from the right:

At

every other point , the function is defined on both sides,

so the calculation we have to test in that case is:

Solution (continued).
Question
This

2: Does lie between and ?

will be trivial to check:

As

required: .

Conclusion:
The

assumptions of the Intermediate Value Theorem are

satisfied, so we conclude that there exists a such that .
This will be a solution of the original equation.

Problem
Prove

that for every positive integer , the number exists.

Solution
Well,

what on earth does this mean? It means: Prove there

exists a real number whose square is .
In

other words: Prove that there exists a solution to the

equation .
In other words: Prove that there exists a number where the
function
has the value zero: .
Well prove that such a exists by applying the I.V.T. to this
function on the interval . Note that:
is a polynomial, so it is continuous at every point.

So

the I.V.T. implies that such a solution exists. E.g. exists!