Past exam of the year 1 of the computer science course of the University of Oxford / 2015 / Discrete mathematics, continuous mathematics, and probability / 3 / a / iii

Suppose the definition of big O notation held with constants $C>0,N$. Choose an odd integer $n>\max (C,N)$. At this input, $f(n)=n$ and $g(n)=1$, so the required inequality would be $n\le C$, a contradiction. ThusThe infinitely many even inputs, where $f(n)/g(n)=1/n$, cannot repair the failure on odd inputs because the bound must hold for every sufficiently large input.