Sunday, 26 July 2015

analysis - Isn't that proof going the wrong way?




I'm currently working on the very well written book Understanding Analysis, by Stephen Abbott.



But I found a proof that looks wrong, I think that it going the wrong way (showing that A B while it should demonstrate that BA).



Here is the theorem :



A function f : A R, fails to be uniformly continuous if there exists a particular ϵ0 and two sequences (xn) and (yn) such that :
lim(|xnyn|)=0 and |f(xn)f(yn)|ϵ0.




Here is the proof :



Negating the definition of uniform continuity gives the following:
A function f:AR fails to be uniformly continuous on A if there exists ε0>0 such that for all δ>0 we can find two points x and y satisfying |xy|<δ but with |f(x)f(y)|ϵ0.



The fact that no δ “works” means that if we were to try δ=1, we would be able to find points x1 and y1 where |x1y1|<1 but |f(x1)f(y1)|ε0.
In a similar way, if we try δ=1/n where nN, it follows that there exist points xn and yn with |xnyn|<1/n but where |f(xn)f(yn)|ϵ0. The sequences (xn) and (yn) are precisely the ones described in theorem.



Comment :




I think that the proof demonstrated that :
f not uniformly continuous (xn) and (yn) exist.
While it should have been the other way around.



Do you agree that the proof is wrong ?


Answer



Note that "f:AR is uniformly continuous" is in fact by definition equivalent to
ϵ>0:δ>0:x,y:(|xy|<δ|f(x)f(y)|<ϵ)
Hence the negation
ϵ>0:δ>0:x,y:(|xy|<δ|f(x)f(y)|ϵ)

is also equivalent to the negation "f:AR fails to be uniformly continuous".
So on the one hand you may have tripped over the custom that "if" in a definition is conceptually an "iff" and that on the other hand the argument does indeed show something stronger than "if", namely "iff".


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