MATH 3283W

Wednesday 4 November 2015

Today: Finish 3.5 on compact sets

4.1 Convergence of sequences
Writing quiz 6: tomorrow
prepare, but do not submit:
3.5 #3, 5, 7b, 8, 13, 14
For Fri.: Watch videos on 3.5, 4.1.

Schedule notes

Exam 3 will be held Tuesday 24 November in discussion.

Class on Wednesday 25 November will be virtual.
More details later.

Exam 2 statistics

173 students took Exam 2, with 100 points possible.

The maximum score is 98.
The mean and median are both 63.

Exam 1 and 2 statistics

173 students took Exam 1 and 2, with 200 points possible.
The maximum score is 189.
The mean is 133, and the median is 137.
Estimated grades
(score range, suggested letter grade, number of students)
[166, 189] A
20
[155, 165] A20
[146, 154] B+ 19
[141, 145] B
17
[136, 140] B17
[126, 135] C+ 20
[117, 125] C
13
[100, 116] C23
[80, 99]
D
17
[0, 79]
<D 7

Checklist

Monday, we:
- Proved the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem, assuming the
Heine-Borel theorem.
- Proved that 1. compact sets are bounded.
- Began to prove that 2. compact sets are closed.
And today, we have left to show the hard part, which is that
- 3. Closed and bounded sets are compact.

Lemma for part 3:

If S R is nonempty, closed, and bounded, then S has a max and
a min.

Now, the hard part.

3. Suppose that S is closed and bounded. Show that S is
compact. Let A be any open cover of S, and we show that A has
a finite subcover.
Idea for how to do this: cut S off at x and ask whether that is
covered by finitely many members of A . Define
Sx = S (, x],
and define B to be the set of x such that Sx is covered by finitely
many members of A .
a. S has a min (why?), call it d. What is Sd ? Then d B (why?).

The hard part, page 2.

b. Show that B is not bounded above. For the sake of

contradiction, suppose that that B is bounded above and that
m = sup B. We show that m S and m 6 S both lead to
contradictions.
i. Suppose that m S. Then there is an A0 A with m A0 .
But A0 is an open set, so there exists  > 0 such that
(m , m + ) A0 . There exists m0 B with m  < m0 < m
(why?). Then show m + /2 is also in B, a contradiction.

The hard part, page 3.

ii. Suppose that m 6 S. Since S is closed, there exists  > 0 such

that N(m, ) S = .
As in part i before, there exists m0 B with m  < m0 < m.
But Sm0 = Sm+/2 (why?), so m + /2 B as well, a contradiction.

4.1 Convergence of sequences

A sequence is an ordered, countably infinite list of real numbers.

You worked with sequences and investigated their behavior
(probably in an informal way) in a second-semester calculus course.
an = (1)n
cn =

1
n2

1 + 3n3
5n3 2n2

bn =

sin n
n

dn =

ln n
n

4.1 Convergence of sequences

We formalize the definition of sequence in the following way:

Definition
A sequence is a function a : N R.
Usually, the output of the natural number n will be written an
instead of a(n), and we refer to the sequence with the notation
(an ) or
(a1 , a2 , a3 , . . . ).
Note the use of the parentheses instead of curly brackets, which
emphasizes the ordering of the elements of the range.
We also formalize the meaning of convergence of a sequence:

Definition of convergence of a sequence

Definition
A sequence (an ) converges to the real number L if and only if for
every  > 0, there exists a real number N such that if
n>N
then
|an L| < .
If (an ) converges to L, then we will write
lim an = L

or an L.
If (an ) does not converge to any real number, then we say that
(an ) diverges.

Examples

Example 1
Show that

1
n

converges to 0.

Examples

Example 2
Show that an = n diverges.

Examples

Example 3
Show that

1
n2

converges to 0.

Examples

Example 4
Find

2n2 5
.
n 3n2 40n
lim

Examples

Example 5
Determine whether the sequence
an = (1)n (1 + 10n )
converges.