Limit definition to compute some complex value function

Genericcoder
Messages
130
Reaction score
0
So there is something I don't understand in the definition of limit that is applied to some problem
I have some intuition for like the rigorous limit definition but I don't have full understanding when applied to some problems.


Use definition 2 to prove lim as z → i of z^2 = -1


The book answer:
We must show that for given E > 0 there is a positive number x such that

|z^2 - (-1)| < E whenever 0 < |z - i| :

so we express |z^2 - (-1) | in terms of |z - i|:

z^2 - (-1) = z^2 + 1 = (z - i)(z + i) = (z - i)(z - i + 2i)

It follows from the properties of absolute value defived in Sec 1.3
that

|z^2 - (-1)| = |z - i||z - i + 2i| <= |z - i| (|z - i| + 2)

Now if |z - i| < x the right hand is less than x(x + 2) so to ensure that it is less than E, we can choose x to be smaller than either of the number E/3 and 1:

|z - i||(|z - i| + 2) < E/3(1 + 2) = 2



So Here there is a lot of stuff that I don't understand like why did we need to express one value in terms of the other ? I still don't know follow what's going on here if someone could explain please because I want full understanding of these stuff. thank you.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Genericcoder said:
So there is something I don't understand in the definition of limit that is applied to some problem
I have some intuition for like the rigorous limit definition but I don't have full understanding when applied to some problems.


Use definition 2 to prove lim as z → i of z^2 = -1


The book answer:
We must show that for given E > 0 there is a positive number x such that

|z^2 - (-1)| < E whenever 0 < |z - i| :

so we express |z^2 - (-1) | in terms of |z - i|:

z^2 - (-1) = z^2 + 1 = (z - i)(z + i) = (z - i)(z - i + 2i)

I'm guessing you are OK to here, right? You are trying to make ##z^2-(-1)## small by getting ##z## near ##i##. Now, on the right side you have ##z-i## which you can make small. That will make the right side small if the rest of it ##|z-i+2i|## isn't too big. Well, how big can it be? ##|z+i|\le |z|+|i| = |z|+1##. That could presumably be very large, except for the fact we are making ##z## close to ##i##. Let's say we keep ##z## within ##1## unit of ##i## so ##|z-i|<1##. How big could ##z## be then? Well, ##|z|-|i|\le |z-i|<1## so ##|z|<1+|i|=2##. Putting this together gives ##|z+i|\le 3## so ##|z^2-(-1)|\le|z-i|\cdot 3##. That's where the overestimate of ##3## comes from. Now pick ##\delta=\min\{\epsilon/3,1\}##.
 
Last edited:
Oke good I understand it now thank you it makes perfect sense.
 
There are two things I don't understand about this problem. First, when finding the nth root of a number, there should in theory be n solutions. However, the formula produces n+1 roots. Here is how. The first root is simply ##\left(r\right)^{\left(\frac{1}{n}\right)}##. Then you multiply this first root by n additional expressions given by the formula, as you go through k=0,1,...n-1. So you end up with n+1 roots, which cannot be correct. Let me illustrate what I mean. For this...
Back
Top