Here is Prob. 12, Sec. 5.2, in the book Introduction To Real Analysis by Robert G. Bartle & Donald R. Sherbert, 4th edition:
A function f:R→R is said to be additive if f(x+y)=f(x)+f(y) for all x,y in R. Prove that if f is continuous at some point x0, then it is continuous at every point of R.
My Attempt:
Let c be an arbitrary real number.
First suppose that x0=0. As f is continuous at the point 0, so given any real number ε>0 we can find a real number δ>0 such that
|f(x)|=|f(x)−0|=|f(x)−f(0)|<ε
for all x∈R for which
|x|=|x−0|<δ.
Then
|f(x)−f(c)|=|f(x−c)|<ε
for all x∈R such that
|x−c|<δ.
Thus it follows that f is continuous at every point c∈R.
Am I right?
Now let us suppose that x0≠0. As f is continuous at x0, so, for every real number ε>0 we can find a real number δ>0 such that
|f(x−x0)|=|f(x)−f(x0)|<ε
for all real numbers x which satisfy
|x−x0|<δ.
Now if we could show from here that f is continuous at 0, then as before we will have managed to show that f is continuous at every real number c.
What next? How to proceed from here to show that our function f is continuous at 0? Or, is there any other route?
Answer
You are almost there. Let |t−0|=|t|<δ, where δ is the one you have in the second box. Then t+x0=x∈R, so |t|=|x−x0|<δ.
Thus, |f(t)−f(0)|=|f(t)|=|f(x−x0)|=|f(x)−f(x0)|<ϵ for |t|<δ.
So f is continuous at 0.
No comments:
Post a Comment