Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 ia Paper 1 3B Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A real function is differentiable at an interior point when the finite limitexists, with restricted so lies in its domain. In quantified form, for every there is such that implies that the difference quotient differs from by less than .
To prove differentiability implies continuity, the convergent difference quotient is bounded by for sufficiently small nonzero . Thus . This is exactly continuity at .
At zero, the particular function has difference quotient . The bound and the squeeze theorem giveFor , the product rule and chain rule giveAt this equals , although and . At it equals . Hence the derivative has no limit at zero and is not continuous there. This demonstrates that differentiability does not imply continuity of the derivative, even though the function itself is continuous.