let f:[0,1]→R be define as
f={1,x=0x,x∈R∖Q1q,x=pq,gcd(p,q)=1
(1) I believe this function is continuous at the irrationals, but discontinuous at the rationals.
attempt:
to show it is discontinuous at the rationals, consider a sequence (xn) of irrationals converging to 0 with (xn)=(πn), we have as
n→∞, xn→0, but f(xn)=x since every term in the sequence is irrational, and f(xn)→0, but at x=0 f(0)=1 so the function is not continuous there.
For other rational numbers, I switch to an ϵ-δ argument:
assume that f was continuous at x=pq, then by definition of continuity, |f(x)−f(y)|<ϵ when |x−y|<δ, now choose ϵ<1q, which now implies |f(x)−1q|<1q whenever |x−y|<δ, but since the irrationals are dense, we can find an irrational y within a δ-ball of x, i.e. y∈(x−δ,y+δ), denote this as y′ and f(y′)=x, so |x−1q|<1q
This is where I get stuck, I don't know where to take it from here. I am pretty sure I need to change my ϵ but I am not seeing what I should change it to to make the proof work.
(2)
To show f is continuous at the irrationals, we can argue by the Archimedian property that ∃n∈N with $\frac{1}{\epsilon}
Answer
This function is not continuous at the irrationals. Consider x=e3 and the sequence (xn)n∈N with:
xn=n∑k=013k!n→∞⟶e3.
Then, f(e3)=e3 since e is transcendental, but f(xn)≤1nn→∞⟶0, because
n∑k=013k!=13n!n∑k=0n!k!
with the sum on the right-hand side being an integer that is not divisible by n (all summands except the last are multiples of n, with the last one being 1). This means the n in the denominator will never cancel, while the numerator is replaced by 1.
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