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Although implicit in the development of calculus of the 17th and 18th centuries, the modern idea of the limit of a function goes back to Bolzano who, in 1817, introduced the basics of the epsilon-delta technique (see (ε, δ)-definition of limit below) to define continuous functions. However, his work was not known during his lifetime.
The epsilon–delta definition of a limit was introduced to formalize the definition of continuity. Continuity is one of the core concepts of calculus and mathematical analysis, where arguments and values of functions are real and complex numbers. The concept has been generalized to functions between metric spaces and between topological spaces.
Augustin-Louis Cauchy in 1821, [6] followed by Karl Weierstrass, formalized the definition of the limit of a function which became known as the (ε, δ)-definition of limit. The modern notation of placing the arrow below the limit symbol is due to G. H. Hardy, who introduced it in his book A Course of Pure Mathematics in 1908. [7]
In these limits, the infinitesimal change is often denoted or .If () is differentiable at , (+) = ′ ().This is the definition of the derivative.All differentiation rules can also be reframed as rules involving limits.
H. Jerome Keisler, David Tall, and other educators maintain that the use of infinitesimals is more intuitive and more easily grasped by students than the "epsilon–delta" approach to analytic concepts. [10] This approach can sometimes provide easier proofs of results than the corresponding epsilon–delta formulation of the proof.
Namely, the epsilon-delta definition of uniform continuity requires four quantifiers, while the infinitesimal definition requires only two quantifiers. It has the same quantifier complexity as the definition of uniform continuity in terms of sequences in standard calculus, which however is not expressible in the first-order language of the real ...
The uniform limit theorem shows that a stronger form of convergence, uniform convergence, is needed to ensure the preservation of continuity in the limit function. More precisely, this theorem states that the uniform limit of uniformly continuous functions is uniformly continuous; for a locally compact space, continuity is equivalent to local ...
In multivariable calculus, an iterated limit is a limit of a sequence or a limit of a function in the form , = (,), (,) = ((,)),or other similar forms. An iterated limit is only defined for an expression whose value depends on at least two variables. To evaluate such a limit, one takes the limiting process as one of the two variables approaches some number, getting an expression whose value ...