Discontinuity 2026-10-25
A point of the domain at which a function fails to be continuous. Every discontinuity of a cumulative distribution function is a positive jump, and there are at most countably many: for each positive integer , at most jumps can have size at least .
The printed assertion needs an endpoint qualification: the enumeration includes zero, but is identically zero. In fact is continuous at zero; the claimed discontinuities occur at every .
Define the finite step function sumsThe assumed convergence of and the bound on each indicator function giveThus the defining series converges everywhere and has uniform convergence. Part (b) proves that is Riemann integrable; it also gives, if desired,For and , every indicator function is nonincreasing, and the th drops by one between and . HenceTaking inputs from the left tending to proves a discontinuity there.
For completeness, continuity at zero follows directly from a finite-head and tail argument. Given , choose with . Choose below every positive with . For , the first indicator functions have exactly their values at zero; the one with , if present, is always zero. Thus . This confirms that the endpoint exception is real. Replacing the printed enumeration of by one of would remove it.
Finally, the density of the rational numbers supplies a positive rational in every nonempty open subinterval of . Thus a Riemann integrable function can have a discontinuity in every open subinterval: dense jumps do not prevent Riemann integrability.
The definition of convergence in distribution gives at each continuity point of . We must handle a moving argument rather than assume this convergence is uniform.
A cumulative distribution function has at most countably many discontinuities: each is a jump of positive size, and there are at most jumps of size at least , since their sizes sum to at most one. Thus we can choose continuity points with and . For fixed , eventually . The monotonicity of each cumulative distribution function impliesFirst let , using the definition of convergence in distribution at . Then let , using continuity at :No result relating different convergence of random variables has been assumed.