Homework 7

Claire Bodemann
Real Analysis I
November 21, 2017

Instructions for homework. Homework is due via Moodle on Tuesday, November 21st . Complete from
the handout ”Continuous Functions” section 7A, p. 89, exercises 6, 7, 9, 11.

Exercise 6. Suppose that B is a subset of S that is not closed. Show that there is a bounded, uniformly
continuous real-valued function on B that does not attain a minimum.
Solution. Let f be a continuous function of f (x) = x, which can get away with not attaining a minimum
value is that the interval (0, 1] is not closed.
If zero were in the interval the f (0) = 0 would be the minimum value. Suppose  were a minimum value.
Since f (x) is the identity function  would then be an element of the interval (0, 1], so  > 0. But f ( 2 ) = 2
is also a value of f (x) on (0, 1]. Since 2 < , this contradicts the assumption that  was the minimum value
of f (x) on (0, 1]. Thus, f (x) does not attain a minimum.
Exercise 7. Suppose that B is a subset of S that is not closed. Show that there is a continuous, real-valued
function on B that is not bounded.
1
Solution. Let B = (0, 1] where B ⊂ R and B is not closed in R. Define f : B → R as f (x) = x. Here f is
continuous on (0, 1].
For any  > 0, consider
d(f (x), f (c)) = |f (x) − f (c)|
1 1
=| − |
x c
|c − x|
=
|xc|
|x − c|
=
|xc|
|x − c|
=
xc
if |x − c| < 2c then 2c < x < 3c 1 2 c 1 2
2 so that 0 < cx < c2 for |x − c| < 2 . Hence, |f (x) − c | ≤ |x − c| c2 . It follows
1
that |f (x) − c | < . Therefore, f (x) is continuous for c ∈ (0, 1] by definition of continuous. Also, f is not
bounded on (0, 1] as limx→0 f (x) = limx→0 x1 = ∞.
Exercise 9. Find a bounded, continuous function f : R → R such that f (R) is neither open nor closed.
2
Solution. Consider the function f : R → R defined by f (x) = x2x+1 . Then f is continuous: f is rational
fraction of polynomials p(x) = x2 , q(x) = x2 + 1 and q(x) 6= 0. Hence, f cannot be equal to 1: if f (x) = 1
2
for some x ∈ R, then x2x+1 = 1 ⇒ x2 = x2 + 1 ⇒ 1 = 0. This is a contradiction.

x2 1
Now limx→∞ x2 +1 = limx→∞ 1+ x12
= 1. So, f is a bounded continuous function. The range is given by
f (R) = [0, 1); neither open nor closed in R.

1
Exercise 11. Suppose that S has the discrete metric. Show that every function from S to a metric space
is uniformly continuous.

Solution. Let S have the discrete metric and let f : S → V . Suppose c, d ∈ S, c = d. Then, for any
 > 0, dS (c, d) = 0 < . Also, if c, d ∈ S, c 6= d,then for any  > 0, dS (c, d) < . Let us choose  = 2,
then we have that for any δ > 0, dV (f (c), f (d)) < δ. So, for any δ > 0, we have that  > 2 such that
dS (c, d) = 0 <  → dV (f (c), f (d)) < δ.Thus, it satisfies the definition of uniformly continues.