Continuous and Disc. functions

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Homework Help Overview

The discussion revolves around understanding the concepts of continuous and discontinuous functions through specific assignments involving sets A and B. The original poster presents two functions, f and g, defined on these sets, and seeks feedback on their continuity properties.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Conceptual clarification, Assumption checking

Approaches and Questions Raised

  • Participants explore the continuity of the functions f and g, questioning the original poster's reasoning and assumptions about points of discontinuity and continuity. There is a focus on specific values, such as 0, and the behavior of the functions near these points.

Discussion Status

Some participants have provided feedback on the original poster's reasoning, prompting further clarification and exploration of the concepts. There is an indication of agreement on the reasoning presented, but no explicit consensus on the correctness of the conclusions drawn.

Contextual Notes

The original poster's reasoning involves visualizing epsilon-delta arguments, and there is a mention of the difficulty in identifying problem points for continuity. The discussion reflects a learning process with varying interpretations of the functions' behaviors.

Unassuming
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I am trying to understand continuous and discontinuous. These are two assignments I have for a class. I am just looking for some feedback...


Let A= {1/n : n is natural}

Then, f(x)= (x , if x in A)
(0 , if x not in A)

This is discontinuous on A but continuous on A complement?



Let B = { x : 0 [tex]\leq[/tex] x < 1 }

Then, g(x) = (1-x , 0[tex]\leq[/tex]x<1 and x is rational)
(0 , otherwise)

And this is discontinuous on B but continuous on B complement?
 
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Are you just guessing? For the first one, 0 is in A complement. Is f continuous at 0? For the second one, maybe. But why do you think so? You should give reasons as well as just a guess at the answer.
 
Unassuming said:
I am trying to understand continuous and discontinuous. These are two assignments I have for a class. I am just looking for some feedback...


Let A= {1/n : n is natural}

Then, f(x)= (x , if x in A)
(0 , if x not in A)

This is discontinuous on A but continuous on A complement?



Let B = { x : 0 [tex]\leq[/tex] x < 1 }

Then, g(x) = (1-x , 0[tex]\leq[/tex]x<1 and x is rational)
(0 , otherwise)

And this is discontinuous on B but continuous on B complement?


I think that the problem point for set A is 0. I believe that f(x) is continuous there because I drew an epsilon in my mind around f(x) on the y-axis and imagined that I could find a delta such that not only the (x not in A) values would map into it (obviously) but that I could choose delta such that the 1/n values were far enough down, and thus in the epsilon N. I hope I am right on this. The problem points are hard to figure out.

With B I am using the same reasoning. This time though we have discontinuous at x=0 because the f(x) values are at value 1 while there are always values in your delta N such that f(x)=0. But at x=1, f(x) is getting as close as we want it to get to f(x)=0.
 
Now that you've explained your reasoning, I feel better better about agreeing with you. I think that's right.
 

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