Sunday, 13 January 2013

real analysis - My proof of uniqueness of limit (of sequence)

Should I try to write a direct (i.e. nonby-contradiction) proof

instead of the below proof?
(I was told that mathematicians prefer direct proofs.)



We consider a convergent sequence
which we denote by
(xn)nN.
By definition, there is a limit (of the sequence).



Theorem.
There are no two limits.




Proof.
We prove by contradiction.
To that end,
we assume that there are two limits.
Now, our mission is to deduce a contradiction.
Let x,x be limits such that xx.
By definition (limit), we have
εR,ε>0:NN:nN,n>N:|xnx|<ε andεR,ε>0:NN:nN,n>N:|xnx|<ε.




Since xx, we have 0<12|xx|.
We choose ε:=12|xx|.



By assumption, there are N,NN such that
nN,n>N:|xnx|<ε andnN,n>N:|xnx|<ε.
We choose n:=max.
Obviously, both n > N and n > N'.
Therefore, we have both |x_n - x| < \varepsilon and |x_n - x'| < \varepsilon.
Thus, by adding inequalities,
\begin{equation*} |x_n - x| + |x_n - x'| < 2 \varepsilon . \end{equation*}

Moreover,
\begin{equation*} \begin{split} 2 \varepsilon & = |x - x'| && | \text{ by choice of } \varepsilon \\ & = |x + 0 - x'| \\ & = |x + ( - x_n + x_n) - x'| \\ & = |(x - x_n) + (x_n - x')| & \qquad & \\ & \le |x - x_n| + |x_n - x'| && | \text{ by subadditivity of abs. val.} \\ & = |x_n - x| + |x_n - x'| && | \text{ by evenness of abs. val.} \\ \end{split} \end{equation*}
Hence, by transitivity, we have 2 \varepsilon < 2 \varepsilon.
Obviously, we deduced a contradiction. QED

No comments:

Post a Comment

real analysis - How to find lim_{hrightarrow 0}frac{sin(ha)}{h}

How to find \lim_{h\rightarrow 0}\frac{\sin(ha)}{h} without lhopital rule? I know when I use lhopital I easy get $$ \lim_{h\rightarrow 0}...