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x
h(x) = 1/2
if 0 x < 1
if x = 1
if x > 1.
Then the claim is that hn h pointwise. To see this, let > 0. There are three cases
to consider:
ln
0 x < 1: If x = 0, then hn (x) = 0 for all n. Otherwise, let N > ln
x , which is equivalent
N
+1
to assuming that x
< . Then, for any n N , we have that
n+1
n+1
x
x
n+1
=
= x
|hn (x) h(x)| =
x
xN +1 < .
1 + xn 1 + xn < x
1 + xn
x = 1: Clearly, hn (1) = 1/2 for all n, so
|hn (1) h(1)| = 0 <
for any n.
x > 1: Let N >
ln(1/)
ln x
x
1
1
1
< n1 n1 N 1 < .
n
1+x
x
r
r
Since the choice of > 0 was arbitrary, we conclude that hn 0 uniformly on [r, ).
1
2. Exercise 6.2.6. Using the Cauchy Criterion for convergent sequences of real numbers (Theorem
2.6.4), supply a proof for Theorem 6.2.5. (First, define a candidate for f (x), and then argue
that fn f uniformly.)
Proof. () Suppose (fn ) converges uniformly on A to some function f . Let > 0. Then, by
definition of uniform convergence, there exists N N such that n N implies that
|fn (x) f (x)| < /2
for any x A.
In particular, if n, m N , then
|fn (x) fm (x)| = |fn (x) f (x) + f (x) fm (x)| |fn (x) f (x)| + |f (x) fm (x)|
by the triangle inequality, but then the fact that n, m N implies that the right hand side
is less than /2 + /2 = . In other words, n, m N implies that
|fn (x) fm (x)| <
for any x A, which was the desired conclusion.
() Suppose, on the other hand, that for every > 0 there exists N N such that |fn (x)
fm (x)| < for all m, n N and all x A.
Then for each x A the sequence of real numbers (fn (x)) is Cauchy and, hence, converges
to some number limn fn (x). This is true for all x A, so we can define the function
f (x) = lim fn (x);
n
(3/2)x
f1 (x) = 1/2
(3/2)x 1/2
for 0 x 1/3
for 1/3 < x < 2/3
for 2/3 x 1.
Sketch f0 and f1 over [0, 1] and observe that f1 is continuous, increasing, and constant
on the middle third (1/3, 2/3) = [0, 1]\C1 .
Answer. f1 is clearly continuous away from 1/3 and 2/3. At 1/3 we have that
lim f1 (x) =
x1/3
x1/3
and
lim f1 (x) =
x1/3+
x1/3+
for 0 x 1/3
(1/2)f1 (3x)
f2 (x) = f1 (x)
for 1/3 < x < 2/3
if 0 x 1/3
|(3/2)x x|
|f1 (x) f0 (x)| = |1/2 x|
if 1/3 < x < 2/3
if 0 x 1/3
|x/2|
= |1/2 x|
if 1/3 < x < 2/3
as desired.
Inductive Hypothesis: Suppose |fn (x) fn1 (x)| 621n1 . Then
if 0 x 1/3
1/2|fn (3x) fn1 (3x)|
= 0
if 1/3 < x < 2/3
1
62n ,
if 0 x 1/3
if 1/3 < x < 2/3
if 2/3 x 1
(c) Let f = lim fn . Prove that f is a continuous, increasing function on [0, 1] with f (0) = 0
and f (1) = 1 that satisfies f 0 (x) = 0 for all x in the open set [0, 1]\C. Recall that the
length of the Cantor set C is 0. Somehow, f manages to increase from 0 to 1 while
remaining constant on a set of length 1.
Proof. Since each fn is continuous and since fn f uniformly, Theorem 6.2.6 implies
that f is continuous. Since each fn is increasing, Problem 3(e) above implies that f is
increasing. Since fn (0) = 0 and fn (1) = 1 for all n, it must be the case that f (0) = 0
and f (1) = 1.
Finally, the fact that f 0 (x) = 0 for all x [0, 1]\C is a corollary of the following claim:
Claim: If I is an interval contained in [0, 1]\C, then f is constant on I.
Proof. Since each Cn is defined by deleting the middle thirds of the intervals that
make up Cn1 and since I is connected, it must be the case that I is contained in the
middle third of some interval in CN for some N N. Then since fN +1 is defined to
be constant on the middle thirds of the intervals making up CN , we know that fN +1 is
constant on an interval containing I.
Moreover, for all n N + 1,
fn (x) = fn1 (x) = = fN +1 (x)
for all x I, so we see that fn is constant on I. In turn, this implies that f is constant
on I.
(a) What is the difference between saying that a sequence of functions (fn ) is equicontinuous
and just asserting that each fn in the sequence is individually uniformly continuous?
Answer. If each fn is uniformly continuous, then, for each n, if > 0 then there exists
> 0 such that |x y| < implies that |fn (x) fn (y)| < , which looks similar to
the definition of equicontinuity. However, in the above situation, the number depends
not only on , but also potentially on n. On the other hand, to satisfy the definition of
equicontinuity, could only depend on .
Stated another way, for a sequence of functions to be equicontinuous, it must be the
case that not only is each function in the sequence uniformly continuous, but that, for
a given > 0, the same choice of > 0 works for all the functions in the sequence.
(b) Give a qualitative explanation for why the sequence gn (x) = xn is not equicontinuous
on [0, 1]. Is each gn uniformly continuous on [0, 1]?
Answer. Each gn is uniformly continuous on [0, 1] (since each gn is continuous and [0, 1]
is compact), but the sequence is not equicontinuous. Heuristically, this is because the
maximum slope of the graph of gn gets arbitrarily large as n gets large. The larger
the maximum slope of gn , the closer together I can pick two numbers x and y while
maintaining some fixed distance between gn (x) and gn (y).
(More rigorously, for any > 0, if |x 1| < and n >
be bigger than 1/2.)
ln(1/2)
ln x ,