Playing tricks with 2-variable limits

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  • čas přidán 30. 06. 2024
  • Oh hey look, a function!
    0:00 Intro
    1:57 Counterexamples to checking some straight lines
    3:40 Counterexample to checking all straight lines
    4:39 A more 'natural' counterexample (and touching grass)
    6:54 Outro
    The graphing program used in this video is the Grapher app that comes with Mac computers.

Komentáře • 95

  • @Leadvest
    @Leadvest Před 11 měsíci +266

    I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds functions in the wild like this.

    • @OutbackCatgirl
      @OutbackCatgirl Před 11 měsíci +5

      that's odd, all i seem to find in my local bush are dysfunctions

    • @luukderuijter1332
      @luukderuijter1332 Před 11 měsíci +2

      I only find epsilons

    • @Leadvest
      @Leadvest Před 11 měsíci +2

      That can't be a good omen, variety is the spice of life. Although usually when I find a gamma it's a really bad sine.

  • @ApolloGorillaTag
    @ApolloGorillaTag Před 11 měsíci +138

    When I took Calc 3 my teacher had this as a test question: True/False If the limit exists along every straight path through a point then the limit exists at the point. (This was the final) Some unexplainable mathematical intuition told me that it had to be false I just couldn’t quite prove why, so I went with my gut and answered false. When I got my test back I had gotten everything right except for that question. I feel both a sense of intense satisfaction and anger from this video, if only I found it at the time to show the teacher!

    • @ilias-4252
      @ilias-4252 Před 11 měsíci +9

      Are you sure you aren't misremembering? Keep in mind that s normally more likely than your answer being correct and the teacher making a mistake.

    • @matheusjahnke8643
      @matheusjahnke8643 Před 11 měsíci +18

      ​@@ilias-4252 I mean.... both here aren't hard.
      The part where it is wrong is the "straight [path]" restriction, you must check for *every* path (straight and curved)....
      It's not hard to add inadvertently when remembering something(which the original commenter might have done)... or to add without making it incorrect(which commenter's teacher might have done)

    • @__nog642
      @__nog642 Před 11 měsíci +1

      @@floppathebased1492 Proving a statement like that is real analysis, not calculus 3.

  • @hyperpsych6483
    @hyperpsych6483 Před 11 měsíci +41

    This is exactly what I needed to see in calc 3, I never understood how a function like that could exist but you explained it perfectly!

  • @victorscarpes
    @victorscarpes Před 14 dny +2

    I used to be a Calculus II tutor at university and I had a similar "trick" to test all possible line paths that didn't need to check the case x=0 separately. All I did was x=at and y=bt and took the limit with t going to zero. This method could also be generalised to allow limits that go towards any generic point (x0,y0) by having x=at+x0 and y=bt+y0 with t going to zero. Most limits would end up depending on a or b, meaning they give different results for different paths, and this, do not exist.

  • @TheDarkSide11891
    @TheDarkSide11891 Před 11 měsíci +5

    Every upload for this channel demands time out of my day, as soon as I see the notification!

  • @JustAFriendlyFrenchDude
    @JustAFriendlyFrenchDude Před 11 měsíci +12

    The king is back ! All hail the king !

  • @francosanson9623
    @francosanson9623 Před 11 měsíci +1

    Absolutely immaculate humor, well done

  • @cblpu5575
    @cblpu5575 Před 11 měsíci +2

    Loved the vid! Please keep uploading

  • @paulnitro9764
    @paulnitro9764 Před 10 měsíci +2

    4:45 caught me absolutly off guard and i've started laughing out loud and every body else can`t understand why

  • @NickiRusin
    @NickiRusin Před 11 měsíci +37

    At least getting all curved paths to agree is enough to prove the limit. If we work with 3-variable functions, do we need all "curved planes" to agree as well?

    • @d.l.7416
      @d.l.7416 Před 11 měsíci +28

      no you just need paths.
      like in 1d you use a path, in 2d you use a path, and similarly in any dimension you use paths

    • @magneticflux-
      @magneticflux- Před 11 měsíci +20

      To clarify @@d.l.7416's answer further, note that the result when a limit does not exist (7:03) only specifies the existence some "sequence of points approaching zero" disagreeing with the limit L, meaning each axis/dimension sequence approaches 0 individually, and the sequence of the function as a whole disagrees with L. The number of dimensions doesn't matter here since nothing else about the sequence of points is specified, and you can simply draw an N-dimensional curved path through such a sequence.

    • @NickiRusin
      @NickiRusin Před 11 měsíci +13

      Right, a series of points is just a path, regardless of dimentionality. Thanks!

    • @nicolascalandruccio
      @nicolascalandruccio Před 11 měsíci

      Is there any direct proof of it? Because a counter-example feels unsatisfactory even if the function looks good

    • @Howtheheckarehandleswit
      @Howtheheckarehandleswit Před 7 dny

      ​@@magneticflux- Additionally, if every path of approach agrees, then every plane of approach also agrees, since any plane is composed of a set of paths

  • @habeebm4916
    @habeebm4916 Před 11 měsíci

    brilliant underrated video, keep making more!!

  • @Iearnwithme
    @Iearnwithme Před 15 dny

    Loving these videos, keep it up, even if it's a little late for me to pay more attention in my Real Analysis module

  • @dr.kraemer
    @dr.kraemer Před 11 měsíci +40

    delightful stuff! I saw the piecewise path coming, but you surprised me with the version you found 'in the wild.' does "all curved paths" imply smoothness (i.e., C_inf)?
    your board work is good, but could be leveled up by adding contrasting-color annotations to indicate transformations between lines.(also good practice in a lecture hall, but it can be hard to keep up with. time works differently here, though.) and at 6:40 you ran out of space and looped back around to the top, so by 6:47 the notation flow is ambiguous.
    you showed restraint in highlighting some failure modes of graphing calculators without dunking on them. I expect you know that you could graph look-alike replicas of your functions by offsetting them a tiny bit to shift the hole in the range onto a gap in the domain lattice that's used to sample and render the surface.

    • @josephnewton
      @josephnewton  Před 11 měsíci +6

      Thanks! I assume you mean "is it enough to check only smooth paths?" I think it depends on your coordinate system. If we're writing paths as y as a function of x then no, since x=0 isn't even a function. But in terms of polar coordinates, writing theta as a function of r, I'm pretty sure it is enough to check only smooth ones as long as you don't require smoothness at r=0. The function f(x)=e^(-1/(1-x^2)) is smooth on [-1,1] and all derivatives are 0 at -1 and 1, so if you have a sequence of points like at 7:02 you could piece together shifted and scaled copies of this to get a function theta(r) passing through the points.

    • @jessewolf7649
      @jessewolf7649 Před 11 měsíci

      @@josephnewtonf(x) is not defined at -1 or 1.

    • @josephnewton
      @josephnewton  Před 11 měsíci

      @@jessewolf7649 Yep, my mistake, that function is part of a piecewise function with f(x)=0 for |x|≥1

  • @musicheaven1679
    @musicheaven1679 Před 13 dny

    You know it's impressive you've made such a good video, I as a highschool student even understand it. Great job man.

  • @panwp123
    @panwp123 Před 14 dny +1

    About the sin(x)/x formalizing being messy.
    No its not, its trivialy easy.
    You start by noticing that sin(x)=x, so you get x/x reducing to 1.

  • @zaheercoovadia4745
    @zaheercoovadia4745 Před 10 měsíci

    loved this video!

  • @Wallawallawallawalla
    @Wallawallawallawalla Před 11 měsíci

    Is this real!? I never thought I’d see another video but I subbed last week just in case! Woo!

  • @robertscholz9862
    @robertscholz9862 Před 11 měsíci +1

    Great video! There is a good problem in baby rudin that goes over this in chapter 4 I believe.

  • @ZectricFOZ
    @ZectricFOZ Před 11 měsíci

    loved this video

  • @daneeko
    @daneeko Před 11 měsíci +4

    very nice video thats a funny function

  • @luismijangos7844
    @luismijangos7844 Před 11 měsíci

    Amazing!

  • @8is
    @8is Před 11 měsíci

    Great video :).

  • @Leo-if5tn
    @Leo-if5tn Před 11 měsíci +3

    Great!

  • @timtsai9285
    @timtsai9285 Před 11 měsíci

    The epsilon delta definition is exactly the point where I stopped paying attention in the calculus class

  • @gdmathguy
    @gdmathguy Před 11 měsíci +3

    I think for such a limit you would first try to identify how it curves (with some derivatives) and THEN try to do the limit

  • @pepe6666
    @pepe6666 Před 11 měsíci

    hey dude, i just stumbled on this video while walking the number line outside. are you a kiwi? awesome.

  • @peterasamoah8779
    @peterasamoah8779 Před 11 měsíci +4

    The King 👑 returns LET HIM COOK 🔥🔥🔥

  • @majorjohnson8001
    @majorjohnson8001 Před 11 měsíci

    "Oh, a function. Oh, a function. Oh, a function..."

  • @clivethompson342
    @clivethompson342 Před 7 měsíci

    This is why I found Calc 4 so cool :)

  • @perappelgren948
    @perappelgren948 Před 11 měsíci

    Nice!

  • @wsshambaugh
    @wsshambaugh Před 11 měsíci +20

    You didn’t specify it at the very end, but checking every curved path only works if you keep yourself to rational functions. Otherwise you can keep playing piecewise games.

    • @josephnewton
      @josephnewton  Před 11 měsíci +11

      Unless I’m mistaken, checking every curved path should work for piecewise functions as well. For the limit to not equal some value L, there must be some value E such that there is a point within every radius D of (0,0) for which the function differs from L by at least E. Taking D to be 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 and so on gives an infinite sequence of points, and then you can draw a spiralling path through them. So if the limit doesn’t equal L then it must not equal L along some path, and conversely if the limit is equal on every path then the overall limit must be the same.

    • @wsshambaugh
      @wsshambaugh Před 11 měsíci +3

      @@josephnewton The simplest counterexample to the general statement: let f(x, y) = 1 at (0, 0) and 0 elsewhere. Any line terminating at (0, 0) also works.
      For curves that pass through the origin, the only places where rational functions are nondifferentiable are at poles. So either your rational function is locally linear at the origin or it's a pole - either one would not fit general continuous piecewise functions. So I'm not sure that even that is a strong enough guarantee. (Not totally clear on this second paragraph though)

    • @japanada11
      @japanada11 Před 11 měsíci +9

      There's a difference between the limit at 0 existing and the function being continuous at 0; the piecewise example you provided is discontinuous, but the limit does exist (and equals 0).

    • @grekiki
      @grekiki Před 11 měsíci

      ​@@wsshambaugh To add a bit to the other response, if you are looking at the limit as x aproaches a of f(x), the value f(a) doesn't matter(of course I implicitly assumed f is defined at a, but that doesn't matter either).

    • @josephnewton
      @josephnewton  Před 11 měsíci +8

      @@wsshambaugh Right, I forgot to include that the point within radius D can't be at (0,0). The full definition is that the limit at (x',y') equals L if for every E>0 there exists D>0 such that 0

  • @benjaminshropshire2900
    @benjaminshropshire2900 Před 11 měsíci +1

    Can a function, at a point where it *is* defined, have a limit not equal to the function at that point? Or is the limit of a function at every defined point by definition the value of the function at that point?

    • @samowen9717
      @samowen9717 Před 11 měsíci +4

      Sure! That's just a non-continuous function, like f(x)={(1 if x=0) and (0 otherwise)}. The limit at 0 is 0, but the value at 0 is defined as 1!

  • @NoNameAtAll2
    @NoNameAtAll2 Před 11 měsíci +1

    will you apply this video to SOME ?

  • @RollMeAFat1
    @RollMeAFat1 Před 11 měsíci +3

    That gap at zero; would most graphing calculators just kind of, fill it in with an approximation?

    • @Liggliluff
      @Liggliluff Před 11 měsíci +3

      Even if it can't calculate 0, that gap is huge. It's like it's ignoring anything below 1. If it's just 0 it ignores, then it should just be a really tiny point.

    • @josephnewton
      @josephnewton  Před 11 měsíci +7

      The calculator only samples a grid of points, which are the vertices of the green checkerboard (that’s why there’s exactly 4 squares missing in the middle). I could have made the gap smaller by increasing the number of vertices, or just got rid of it by having (0,0) be between the sampled points, but the later functions in the video are a lot harder to graph accurately because of the big height changes

    • @RollMeAFat1
      @RollMeAFat1 Před 11 měsíci +1

      @@josephnewton ah I see, thank you!

  • @James2210
    @James2210 Před 14 dny

    What kinds of curved paths do you have to check? e.g. quartics? Can you just take a rational approximation or will that not work? For example ln(x)

  • @ZipplyZane
    @ZipplyZane Před 11 měsíci +1

    I was taught that a limit of infinity is not the same thing as does not exist. You only get DNE if one side is positive infinity and the other side is negative infinity.
    So, for example, the lim_x->0 (1/|x|) = infinity, but lim_x->0 (1/|x|) Does Not Exist.

    • @ingenuity23-yg4ev
      @ingenuity23-yg4ev Před 11 měsíci

      i think you used |x| twice by mistake and meant lim x->0 1/x, and yes i agree

  • @MRACOS2
    @MRACOS2 Před 11 měsíci

    what is that real-time 3d graph builder that you are using?

    • @Nathan-cz8uk
      @Nathan-cz8uk Před 10 měsíci

      i'm pretty sure it's the 'grapher' app that comes with mac computers; at least, mine produces graphs that look the same

  • @tsawy6
    @tsawy6 Před 11 měsíci +1

    Is it sufficient to check every rational path?

    • @tsawy6
      @tsawy6 Před 11 měsíci

      Well, I guess the same construction used on any non rational function will do!

    • @Rotem_S
      @Rotem_S Před 11 měsíci

      ​@@tsawy6Maybe not, depends on how well we can approximate general functions using rational ones (kind of reminds me of Padè approximation)

    • @tsawy6
      @tsawy6 Před 11 měsíci

      @@Rotem_S wouldn't the same counter example he first presented with a quadratic for straight lines work just fine if we sub out the quadratic for e.g. an exponential?

  • @Ganerrr
    @Ganerrr Před 11 měsíci

    Golden video, now just invert the colors lol

  • @1337w0n
    @1337w0n Před 11 měsíci

    Why is half the video cut off?

  • @romaobraz4295
    @romaobraz4295 Před 9 měsíci

    i wish i watched this before taking calc 1 and 2

  • @SPVLaboratories
    @SPVLaboratories Před 11 měsíci +2

    Funny enough this is the kind of thing that Ted kaczynski wrote about in his thesis. The points you’re describing are called “ambiguity points” and there can only be countable many of them regardless of the function

  • @user-bz3kd2mt3u
    @user-bz3kd2mt3u Před 10 měsíci

    I'm confused, why can't that piecewise polynomial function have a limit of 0? It's been a couple years since calculus, but I don't seem to remember "if the function is defined at x, the limit is either equal to f(x) or does not exist" being a rule.
    Wouldn't f(x) = {0 if x = 0, 1 otherwise} have a limit of 0 as x goes to 0?

    • @josephnewton
      @josephnewton  Před 10 měsíci +2

      That’s correct, the limit can be different from the value of the function. But for the function f(x,y)=1 when x=y^2, there are points (x,y) arbitrarily close to (0,0) such that f(x,y)=1, so the limit can’t be zero

    • @user-bz3kd2mt3u
      @user-bz3kd2mt3u Před 10 měsíci

      @@josephnewton Ah

  • @user-pr6ed3ri2k
    @user-pr6ed3ri2k Před 11 měsíci +1

    3:00 bruh
    now that I think of it I presume it's because x = 0 cannot really be represented as the form y = mx

  • @meeharbin4205
    @meeharbin4205 Před 11 měsíci

    I think x^y is a good example.
    y = mx gives (x^x)^m which approaches 1.
    x=0 gives 0^y, which gives 0.
    and x = A^(1/y) gives A.
    so most lines give you 1, one line gives you 0 and some curves give you any number you want.
    My question is what set of functions give you the same limit when you approach 0 with a curve as with a line tangent to the curve. Note that different curves are still allowed to give different limits.

  • @glumbortango7182
    @glumbortango7182 Před 11 měsíci

    0:33 I keep hearing that this is a tricky thing to prove, but doesn't the Taylor series expansion of sin(x) just give it for free?

    • @blank4502
      @blank4502 Před 11 měsíci

      Or you could use L'Hopital's rule and take the derivative of the numerator and denominator to get cos(x)/1

    • @josephnewton
      @josephnewton  Před 11 měsíci +2

      Yes, what I meant was that I didn’t want to get into the technical details of how limits are actually defined, which is the epsilon-delta definition

    • @nothayley
      @nothayley Před 11 měsíci +4

      depends on how you do it, but often the proof of sinx/x -> 1 will be a *prerequisite* for finding d(sinx)/dx, which you need for both the Taylor series and L'Hôpital's rule

  • @redminecrafter101
    @redminecrafter101 Před 10 měsíci

    #SoME3

  • @huailiulin
    @huailiulin Před 10 měsíci

    Now you are guilty of not transforming (x, y) into (r, theta) when saying "Actually all" the lines 🔍🔎

  • @mihaleben6051
    @mihaleben6051 Před 11 měsíci

    Hmmm. I have no idea how this works

  • @mp0011
    @mp0011 Před 11 měsíci

    Isn't saying that "limit do not exist" just sweeping problem under the rug...?

  • @DeadJDona
    @DeadJDona Před 11 měsíci

    3:30 where tf is x?

  • @bscutajar
    @bscutajar Před 11 měsíci +1

    I don't understand why the limit along the straight lines equals 0. You can get arbitrarily close to 1 along any of the straight lines, so it should equal 1.

    • @jelmerterburg3588
      @jelmerterburg3588 Před 11 měsíci +3

      You can get arbitrarily close in _distance_ to the point where the value is 1, but not in value. On all of those increasingly closer points, the value is still 0 (except where you actually cross the parabola) and does not approach 1. Instead, it jumps to 1 abruptly when you reach the end point. (Assuming that you were talking about the function at 4:08.)

    • @bscutajar
      @bscutajar Před 11 měsíci

      @@jelmerterburg3588 so at that exact point the gradient is undefined and the function is discontinuous?

    • @jelmerterburg3588
      @jelmerterburg3588 Před 11 měsíci +1

      @@bscutajar Exactly :). The situation here is a bit more complicated than usual because there are two input variables and therefore infinitely many ways to move around the input plane. If you follow the function along the path of the parabola, or along a path which never crosses the parabola, the function is continuous for all points along that path. But if you consider the entire input plane (and all possible paths through it), the function is discontinuous.

  • @giobrach
    @giobrach Před 5 dny

    Btw your “unnatural” counterexample also swiftly shows that existence of partial derivatives (they’re all 0 at the origin) does not imply differentiability (function is not even continuous at the origin, let alone differentiable).
    A comment regarding the “check all curved paths” thing - one may show that the limit of f at, say, the origin exists, iff the limits of a FINITE family of restrictions of f to a collection of DISJOINT subsets whose union is the domain of f (all having the origin as an accumulation point blah blah) all exist and coincide. This is blatantly false for infinite families of disjoint subsets, e.g. the collection of straight lines through the origin.
    However one may certainly consider an infinite family of non-overlapping CURVED paths that accumulate at the origin, along which the limit exists, and all of the limits coincide, but the overall limit still doesn’t exist. Take the unnatural counterexample again, and probe it along, say, curves of the form y = Ax^3 for real A, or logarithmic spirals that converge to 0…
    Point is, the issue isn’t straight vs curved, but disjoint vs overlapping! Indeed, the theorem becomes true again if you allow the subsets to overlap.

  • @danwe6297
    @danwe6297 Před 11 měsíci

    2:00 Actually when using interchanged implication, it is not sufficient just negating the sides, they need to be negated and interchanged at once, either interchanged implication method of proof is not valid