Continuity of functions is one of the core concepts of topology, which is treated in full generality below. The introductory portion of this article focuses on the special case where the inputs and outputs of functions are real numbers. In addition, this article discusses the definition for the more general case of functions between two metric spaces. In order theory, especially in domain theory, one considers a notion of continuity known as Scott continuity. Other forms of continuity do exist but they are not discussed in this article.
As an example, consider the function h(t), which describes the height of a growing flower at time t. This function is continuous. In fact, a dictum of classical physics states that in nature everything is continuous. By contrast, if M(t) denotes the amount of money in a bank account at time t, then the function jumps whenever money is deposited or withdrawn, so the function M(t) is discontinuous.
There are several ways to make this intuition mathematically rigorous. These definitions are equivalent to one another, so the most convenient definition can be used to determine whether a given function is continuous or not. In the definitions below, : is a function defined on a subset I of the set R of real numbers. This subset I is referred to as the domain of f. Possible choices include I=R, the whole set of real numbers, an open interval : or a closed interval : Here, a and b are real numbers.
The function f is continuous if it is continuous at every point of its domain. If the point c in the domain of f is not a limit point of the domain, then this condition is vacuously true, since x cannot approach c through values not equal c. Thus, for example, every function whose domain is the set of all integers is continuous.
:
Alternatively written, continuity of ƒ : I → D at c ∈ I means that for every ε > 0 there exists a δ > 0 such that for all x ∈ I,:
:
A form of this epsilon-delta definition of continuity was first given by Bernard Bolzano in 1817. Preliminary forms of a related definition of the limit were given by Cauchy, though the formal definition and the distinction between pointwise continuity and uniform continuity were first given by Karl Weierstrass.
More intuitively, we can say that if we want to get all the ƒ(x) values to stay in some small neighborhood around ƒ(c), we simply need to choose a small enough neighborhood for the x values around c, and we can do that no matter how small the ƒ(x) neighborhood is; ƒ is then continuous at c.
In modern terms, this is generalized by the definition of continuity of a function with respect to a basis for the topology, here the metric topology.
This definition is useful in descriptive set theory to study the set of discontinuities and continuous points – the continuous points are the intersection of the sets where the oscillation is less than ε (hence a Gδ set) – and gives a very quick proof of one direction of the Lebesgue integrability condition.
The oscillation is equivalent to the ε-δ definition by a simple re-arrangement, and by using a limit (lim sup, lim inf) to define oscillation: if (at a given point) for a given ε0 there is no δ that satisfies the ε-δ definition, then the oscillation is at least ε0, and conversely if for every ε there is a desired δ, the oscillation is 0. The oscillation definition can be naturally generalized to maps from a topological space to a metric space.
:A function ƒ from the reals to the reals is continuous if its natural extension to the hyperreals has the property that for real x and infinitesimal dx, is infinitesimal.
In other words, an infinitesimal increment of the independent variable corresponds to an infinitesimal change of the dependent variable, giving a modern expression to Augustin-Louis Cauchy's definition of continuity.
Given two continuous functions : the composition : is continuous.
Thomae's function, : is continuous at all irrational numbers and discontinuous at all rational numbers. In a similar vein, Dirichlet's function : is nowhere continuous.
: If the real-valued function f is continuous on the closed interval [a, b] and k is some number between f(a) and f(b), then there is some number c in [a, b] such that f(c) = k.
For example, if a child grows from 1 m to 1.5 m between the ages of two and six years, then, at some time between two and six years of age, the child's height must have been 1.25 m.
As a consequence, if f is continuous on [a, b] and f(a) and f(b) differ in sign, then, at some point c in [a, b], f(c) must equal zero.
The derivative f
Every continuous function : is integrable (for example in the sense of the Riemann integral). The converse does not hold, as the (integrable, but discontinuous) sign function shows.
:
This is the same condition as for continuous functions, except that it is required to hold for x strictly larger than c only. Requiring it instead for all x with yields the notion of left-continuous functions. A function is continuous if and only if it is both right-continuous and left-continuous.
A function f is upper semi-continuous if, roughly, any jumps that might occur only go up, but not down. That is, for any ε > 0, there exists some number δ > 0 such that for all x in the domain with |x − c| < δ, the value of ƒ(x) satisfies :
The set of points at which a function between metric spaces is continuous is a Gδ set – this follows from the ε-δ definition of continuity.
This notion of continuity is applied, for example, in functional analysis. A key statement in this area says that a linear operator : between normed vector spaces V and W (which are vector spaces equipped with a compatible norm, denoted ||x||) is continuous if and only if it is bounded, that is, there is a constant K such that : for all x in V.
A function is Hölder continuous with exponent α (a real number) if there is a constant K such that for all b and c in X, the inequality : holds. Any Hölder continuous function is uniformly continuous. The particular case is referred to as Lipschitz continuity. That is, a function is Lipschitz continuous if there is a constant K such that the inequality : holds any b, c in X. The Lipschitz condition occurs, for example, in the Picard–Lindelöf theorem concerning the solutions of ordinary differential equations.
A function : between two topological spaces X and Y is continuous if for every open set V ⊆ Y, the inverse image : is an open subset of X. That is, f is a function between the sets X and Y (not on the elements of the topology TX), but the continuity of f depend on the topologies used on X and Y.
This is equivalent to the condition that the preimages of the closed sets (which are the complements of the open subsets) in Y are closed in X.
An extreme example: if a set X is given the discrete topology (in which every subset is open), all functions : to any topological space T are continuous. On the other hand, if X is equipped with the indiscrete topology (in which the only open subsets are the empty set and X) and the space T set is at least T0, then the only continuous functions are the constant functions. Conversely, any function whose range is indiscrete is continuous.
If X and Y are metric spaces, it is equivalent to consider the neighbourhood system of open balls centered at x and f(x) instead of all neighborhoods. This gives back the above δ-ε definition of continuity in the context of metric spaces. However, in general topological spaces, there is no notion of nearness or distance.
Note, however, that if the target space is Hausdorff, it is still true that f is continuous at a if and only if the limit of f as x approaches a is f(a). At an isolated point, every function is continuous.
In detail, a function f : X → Y is sequentially continuous if whenever a sequence (xn) in X converges to a limit x, the sequence (f(xn)) converges to f(x). Thus sequentially continuous functions "preserve sequential limits". Every continuous function is sequentially continuous. If X is a first-countable space and countable choice holds, then the converse also holds: any function preserving sequential limits is continuous. In particular, if X is a metric space, sequential continuity and continuity are equivalent. For non first-countable spaces, sequential continuity might be strictly weaker than continuity. (The spaces for which the two properties are equivalent are called sequential spaces.) This motivates the consideration of nets instead of sequences in general topological spaces. Continuous functions preserve limits of nets, and in fact this property characterizes continuous functions.
The possible topologies on a fixed set X are partially ordered: a topology τ1 is said to be coarser than another topology τ2 (notation: τ1 ⊆ τ2) if every open subset with respect to τ1 is also open with respect to τ2. Then, the identity map :idX : (X, τ2) → (X, τ1) is continuous if and only if τ1 ⊆ τ2 (see also comparison of topologies). More generally, a continuous function : stays continuous if the topology τX is replaced by a weaker topology and/or τY is replaced by a stronger topology.
If a continuous bijection has as its domain a compact space and its codomain is Hausdorff, then it is a homeomorphism, as can be shown.
Dually, for a function f from a set S to a topological space, the initial topology on S has as open subsets A of S those subsets for which f(A) is open in X. If S has an existing topology, f is continuous with respect to this topology if and only if the existing topology is finer than the initial topology on S. Thus the initial topology can be characterized as the coarsest topology on S that makes f continuous. If f is injective, this topology is canonically identified with the subspace topology of S, viewed as a subset of X.
More generally, given a set S, specifying the set of continuous functions : into all topological spaces X defines a topology. Dually, a similar idea can be applied to maps : This is an instance of a universal property.
In category theory, a functor : between two categories is called continuous, if it commutes with small limits. That is to say, : for any small (i.e., indexed by a set I, as opposed to a class) diagram of objects in .
A continuity space is a generalization of metric spaces and posets, which uses the concept of quantales, and that can be used to unify the notions of metric spaces and domains.
Category:Calculus Category:Types of functions
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