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In mathematics, a nowhere continuous function, also called an everywhere discontinuous function, is a function that is not continuous at any point of its domain.If is a function from real numbers to real numbers, then is nowhere continuous if for each point there is some > such that for every >, we can find a point such that | | < and | () |.
The pointwise limit of continuous functions does not have to be continuous: the continuous functions (marked in green) converge pointwise to a discontinuous function (marked in red). Suppose that X {\displaystyle X} is a set and Y {\displaystyle Y} is a topological space , such as the real or complex numbers or a metric space , for example.
Discontinuous functions may be discontinuous in a restricted way, giving rise to the concept of directional continuity (or right and left continuous functions) and semi-continuity. Roughly speaking, a function is right-continuous if no jump occurs when the limit point is approached from the right.
A natural follow-up question one might ask is if there is a function which is continuous on the rational numbers and discontinuous on the irrational numbers. This turns out to be impossible. The set of discontinuities of any function must be an F σ set. If such a function existed, then the irrationals would be an F σ set.
Then f is a non-decreasing function on [a, b], which is continuous except for jump discontinuities at x n for n ≥ 1. In the case of finitely many jump discontinuities, f is a step function . The examples above are generalised step functions; they are very special cases of what are called jump functions or saltus-functions.
A sequence of functions () converges uniformly to when for arbitrary small there is an index such that the graph of is in the -tube around f whenever . The limit of a sequence of continuous functions does not have to be continuous: the sequence of functions () = (marked in green and blue) converges pointwise over the entire domain, but the limit function is discontinuous (marked in red).
A set-valued function that is both upper and lower hemicontinuous is said to be continuous in an analogy to the property of the same name for single-valued functions. To explain both notions, consider a sequence a of points in a domain, and a sequence b of points in the range.
When we speak of a function being continuous on an interval, we mean that the function is continuous at every point of the interval. In contrast, uniform continuity is a global property of f {\displaystyle f} , in the sense that the standard definition of uniform continuity refers to every point of X {\displaystyle X} .