SAQ 03-01

Give an example of a sequence which is

(a) unbounded and has no convergent subsequence

(b) unbounded and has a convergent subsequence.

03-02: THE BOLZANO-WEIERSTRASS THEOREM FOR SEQUENCES

From for the discussion carried so far, we observe that a convergent sequence necessarily contain
convergent sequences only. There is no chance for the existence of a divergent subsequence of a
convergent sequence. The question is does the existence of a convergent subsequence of  sn 
depend only onconvergence of ? The following example answers in negative.

Consider the sequence

We select two of its subsequences:

and

It is obvious that these two subsequences are convergent. But what about It is a divergent
sequence because is not unique i.e. the limit does not exist.

It thus follows that convergent subsequence may follow form its parent sequence which can be
divergent. The exact nature of a sequence which assures the existence of its convergent
subsequence is provided by the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem stated as follows.

Bolzano – Weierstrass theorem for sequences

Any bounded infinite sequence of real numbers contains a convergent subsequence.

Hint. Nested interval property: Consider the closed intervals

such that and

Then there exists unique real number common to all the intervals i.e. .

Proof. Let be any bounded infinite sequence of real numbers. By definition of

boundedness, such that

i.e.

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This means that all are contained in an interval of length

Divide into two equal subintervals each of length A. Then one of them (or both) contains an
infinitely many sn. Denote this subinterval by I1 which contains infinitely many sn. Length of

is Next divide into two equal subintervals of length At least one these two parts must

contain infinitely many Call this subinterval of length A / 2. Continue the process of
dividing the subintervals into two equal parts. This way we obtain a sequence of subintervals

I  I1  I 2  I3    I n  

such that each I n , n  1, 2,  contains infinitely many sn.

The length of I n is since as we apply the nested interval property

to get a unique number (or point) say such that is contained in each

We construct a subsequence of  sn , which converges to s0 through a selection process

as follows.

Choose sr1 to be any member of  sn  in I1. Next choose sr2 to be any member of  sn  such

that sr2  I 2 with r2  r1. This is possible because I 2 has infinitely many sn. Next choose sr3 to

be any member of  sn  such that sr3  I 3 with r3  r2. This is also possible since I3 contains

infinitely many sn. We continue the selection process and obtain the numbers

sr1 , sr2 , , srn , , where .

Since each we obtain a subsequence of :

Now and is of length Then we have

is convergent

This proves that any bounded real sequence has a convergent subsequence
QED

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