Continuity

1. A distance function on a set X is required to satisfy three properties:

i. d(x, y) 0, x, y X,
ii. d(x, y) = d(y, x), x, y X,
iii. d(x, y) + d(y, z) d(x, z), x, y, z X.
An open ball in X with respect to the distance d is a set of the form
B(x, ) = {y X : d(y, x) < }
where x X and R. The set of these balls can be used as a basis for a topology
on X, called the metric topology associated with the distance d.
a. Prove that if f : X Y is a map between metric spaces then the definition of
continuity is equivalent to the open set definition which states that f 1 (U) is an
open set in X whenever U is an open set in Y .
b. Show, using both definitions of continuity, that the function f : R R given
by f (x) = x2 is continuous. For each of the following functions, examine what
is required in order to show that they are continuous with the definition of
continuity:
2

f (x) = ex 2x+1 ,
g(x) = sin (x2 ) + x,
x3 + ex
h(x) =
.
1 + | cos x|
Why is this a difficult task?
c. One way to avoid the problem of finding an explicit for each and each point x
in the domain is to formulate general rules for showing that functions are continuous: for example, sums, products, and compositions of continuous functions are
continuous. These are general statements which have simple proofs using either
definition of continuity: verify, using the open set definition of continuity, that
these rules do in fact hold.
2. Suppose f : R R is a continuous map of topological spaces. Show that if {xn }
n=1 R
is a sequence such that limn xn = x then
lim f (xn ) = f (x).

3. Suppose S R a subset. For each x R define the distance from x to S by

(x, S) = inf{|x y| : y S}.
a. Show that the function x (x, S) is a continuous function from R to R.
b. Show that (x, S) = 0 if and only if x is in the closure of S.
4. Show that a continuous map f : [0, 1] R is uniformly continuous, that is, given any
> 0 there exists a > 0 so that if x, y [0, 1] and |x y| < then |f (x) f (y)| < .
Is this still true if [0, 1] is replaced by (0, 1)? Which of the following functions, viewed
as maps from R to R are uniformly continuous?
a. f (x) = |x|,
b. g(x) = x2 ,
c. f (x) = cos x,
d. f (x) = ex .
5. Suppose X is a metric space and f : X X is a map from X to itself. The map f is called
a contraction if there is a positive real number < 1 such that d(f (x), f (y)) d(x, y)
for all pairs of points x, y X.
a. For the following maps, from R to R, identify which ones are contractions: f (x) =
x/2 + 1, g(x) = cos x, h(x) = ex .
b. Do these maps have any fixed points, that is points x R such that f (x) = x?
c. Suppose now that X is a compact subset of R. Show that any contraction map on
X has a unique fixed point. Give some example where X = [0, 1] and find the
fixed point for each of your examples.
6. Suppose f : R R is a 2 to 1 map, i.e. for each y R there exist exactly two
distinct values x1 , x2 R such that f (x1 ) = f (x2 ) = y. Show that f cannot be
continuous. [Hint: suppose that there is a continuous f : R R which is 2 to 1. Let
f (a) = f (b) = 0 for a < b. Show that f maps (, a) entirely into (, 0) or entirely
into (0, ); then apply the same argument to (b, )].