EPSILON-DELTA PROOFS

with Desmos

GETTING STARTED
0. Open this graph: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/bpybsit4qx. 1. Meet Desman: . Desman is unhappy, but were going to change that.

2. Let f (x) = x2 , xstar = 2, and L = 4. There are two important sliders were going to be working with: epsilon = 1 delta = 0.5 (a) How does epsilon relate to the purple region? (b) How does delta relate to the red/green region? (c) What are the restrictions on epsilon and delta ?

NUMERICAL HAPPINESS
3. Set: epsilon = 1 Desman is happy when you nd a delta value small enough so that the red/green region ts inside the purple region. For example, set: delta = 0.2 ...and you should see happy Desman: !
Remember, > 0.

4. For each of the epsilon values in the table, nd a corresponding value of delta that is small enough to make Desman happy. Note: For smaller values of epsilon , you should adjust the upper boundary on delta in order to use the slider more precisely.

1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.1 0.05 0.01 0.005 0.001

0.2

5. Can you nd a value of epsilon > 0 so there is no possible value of delta works?

ANALYTIC HAPPINESS
We could play this game forever, picking smaller and smaller epsilon s and nding even smaller delta s. Instead, lets put delta in terms of epsilon so that were done once and for all.

We want: |f (x) L| < | 4| < < 4< + + < < < + < + + + 2 2

2<x2< |x 2| <

So, well let: =

Try entering this expression for delta into Desmos. If you did it correctly, when epsilon = 1, Desmos should tell you that delta = 0.23606798, and Des-mas should be happy!

Finally, try sliding the value of epsilon . What happens?!

MORE PRACTICE

f (x ) = x0 = L= 1 0.5 0.2 0.1 0.05 0.01 0.005 0.001 < f (x ) = x0 = L= 1 0.5 0.2 0.1 0.05 0.01 0.005 0.001 < < <

f (x ) = x0 = L= 1 0.5 0.2 0.1 0.05 0.01 0.005 0.001

f (x ) = x0 = L= 1 0.5 0.2 0.1 0.05 0.01 0.005 0.001