Defining continuity of real functions of real variables

Abstract

Continuity of a real function of a real variable has been defined in various ways over almost 200 years. Contrary to popular belief, the definitions are not all equivalent, because their consequences for four somewhat pathological functions reveal five essentially different cases. The four defensible ones imply just two cases for continuity on an interval if that is defined by using pointwise continuity at each point. Some authors had trouble: two different textbooks each gave two arguably inconsistent definitions, three more changed their definitions in their second editions, two more claimed continuity at a point for functions not defined there, and one gave a definition implying it for a function with no limit there.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Dr June Barrow-Green for helpful comments on this work and for Rice and Wilson (2003), to the Cambridge University Library for access to rare publications, and to the Victoria University of Wellington for allowing me to use its facilities after retirement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Page numbers for definitions of continuity are given in the third section ‘Continuity of four functions’, either in citations or in square brackets in quotations. In a quotation, a row of dots not in square brackets is in the original text, but [...] indicates an omission.