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These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.
A sequence has at most one limit
Statement
Let be a sequence of reals (Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences) and let . If converges to and converges to (Limits and Cauchy sequences of reals), then . A sequence therefore has at most one limit, and when a limit exists it may be denoted .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A sequence of reals and reals such that converges to and converges to (Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences, Limits and Cauchy sequences of reals).
Convergence: converges to when for every rational there is with for all (Limits and Cauchy sequences of reals).
Triangle inequality: in any ordered field, in particular in (The triangle inequality, Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property)).
Absolute value: , and if and only if , and (Basic properties of the absolute value).
Small rationals: for every real there is a rational with . Either route gives this: density of in (The rationals embed densely in the reals) applied to the pair ; or the Archimedean property (Every complete ordered field is Archimedean) applied to , which yields a natural with and hence (Inverses of positives are positive, and reciprocation reverses order).
Order arithmetic in . Trichotomy, so together with and forces ; transitivity and irreflexivity of ; and, since means or , the mixed form (Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property), Ordered field). Adding two strict inequalities: and give (Order is preserved by adding a constant and by adding inequalities). Multiplying by a positive: for , gives (Sign rules for products and monotonicity of multiplication). Halving a positive: (The multiplicative identity is positive), so because the positives are closed under addition (Ordered field), hence (Inverses of positives are positive, and reciprocation reverses order) and whenever (Sign rules for products and monotonicity of multiplication).
The order on is total, so any two indices admit an index with and ( is a linear order on ).
Proof
Suppose, for contradiction, that .
Then , so while ; by trichotomy , and hence .
Choose a rational with ; multiplying that inequality by and using gives .
Since converges to there is with for all , and since converges to there is with for all .
Fix an index with and ; then , while adding the two strict inequalities of step 4.1 gives ; composing the non-strict inequality with the strict one yields .
Combining, , so , which contradicts irreflexivity of the strict order.
The assumption is therefore untenable, so : a sequence of reals has at most one limit.
Remarks
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Uniqueness is what licenses the notation and the phrase the limit. Without it the symbol would not denote. This library writes only for sequences already known to converge, exactly as it writes only for sets already known to have a supremum (Conventions: , unbounded sets, and the extended reals).
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The proof uses only that is an ordered field in which arbitrarily small positive rationals exist, that is, an Archimedean ordered field (Every complete ordered field is Archimedean). Completeness is not needed: limits are unique in too, where many sequences fail to have one.
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The hypothesis is genuinely about a single sequence having two limits. Two different sequences may of course share a limit, and a sequence with no limit at all is not excluded by anything here.
Depends on
- Limits and Cauchy sequences of reals
- Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences
- Every complete ordered field is Archimedean
- The triangle inequality
- Basic properties of the absolute value
- The rationals embed densely in the reals
- Inverses of positives are positive, and reciprocation reverses order
- Order is preserved by adding a constant and by adding inequalities
- Sign rules for products and monotonicity of multiplication
- The multiplicative identity is positive
- $\le$ is a linear order on $\mathbb{N}$
- Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property)
- Ordered field
Used by
- A function has no limit at c as soon as two sequences in A ∖ {c} tending to c give different limits of the values Corollary
- Stolz-Cesaro, 0/0 form: if bₖ is strictly decreasing to 0, aₖ → 0, and the difference quotient converges, then aₖ/bₖ converges to the same value Corollary
- The a priori bound d(x^*, xₙ) ≤ qⁿ d(x₁,x₀)/(1-q) and the a posteriori bound d(x^*, xₙ₊₁) ≤ q d(xₙ₊₁,xₙ)/(1-q) Corollary
- A sequence with limsup = +∞: the greatest subsequential limit exists only in overlineℝ Counterexample
- aₖ = (-1)ᵏ, bₖ = k have aₖ/bₖ → 0 while the difference quotient oscillates, so Stolz-Cesaro has no converse Counterexample
- Null times divergent has no rule: xₖ = 1/k with yₖ = ck gives product limit c, and with yₖ = k² gives divergence Counterexample
- The truncated decimal approximations of √2 form a Cauchy sequence of rationals with no rational limit Counterexample
- A summability (Toeplitz) matrix, the transformed sequence yₙ = ∑ₖ c_n,k xₖ, and regularity Definition
- Convergence and cluster points of a sequence in a topological space, sequential continuity, and the sequential closure Definition
- Convergence in overlineℝ and the extended subsequential limit set: L ∈ overlineℝ is an extended subsequential limit when some subsequence converges to L, or diverges to L = ±∞ Definition
- Infinite products: partial products, and convergence to a nonzero limit after finitely many vanishing factors Definition
- Pointwise convergence of a sequence of real functions, and the Baire class one functions as the pointwise limits of sequences of continuous functions Definition
- Series, partial sums, convergence and the sum, divergence, and the tail series Definition
- The Cesaro means σₙ = (x₀ + … + xₙ)/(n+1) and (C,1)-summability Definition
- Stolz-Cesaro gives (1 + 2 + … + n)/n² → 1/2 and (1ᵖ + … + nᵖ)/nᵖ⁺¹ → 1/(p+1) for natural p Example
- The Babylonian sequence x₁ = 2, xₖ₊₁ = (xₖ + 2/xₖ)/2 decreases to √2 Example
- The bounded real-valued functions on a set, with the supremum metric, form a complete metric space Example
- The sequence (-1)ᵏ(1 + 1/k) is bounded with subsequential limit set exactly {-1, 1} Example
- The sequence x₁ = 1, xₖ₊₁ = √2 + xₖ increases to 2 Example
- The sequence xₖ₊₁ = (xₖ + 1)/3 is contractive with c = 1/3 and converges to 1/2 Example
- FALSE: a convergent subsequence forces the sequence to converge False statement
- FALSE: a sequence in ℝⁿ whose coordinate sequences are each bounded converges False statement
- FALSE: limits preserve strict inequalities False statement
- Complete metrizability: admitting a topologically equivalent complete metric is preserved by homeomorphism and by closed subspaces, and (0,∞) has it without being complete Lemma
- Limits preserve non-strict inequalities Lemma
- Subsequences inherit the limit Lemma
- Conventions for sequences: indexing, eventually, lim, and rational ε Remark
- A completion is unique up to a unique isometry fixing the original space, and uniformly continuous maps into complete spaces extend through it Theorem
- A nested sequence of nonempty closed bounded intervals has nonempty intersection, and the intersection is a single point exactly when the lengths tend to 0 Theorem
- A subset of ℝ is compact iff it is sequentially compact Theorem
- A summability matrix with only finitely many nonzero entries per row is regular iff each column tends to 0, the row sums tend to 1, and the row absolute sums are uniformly bounded Theorem
- Dini's theorem: on a compact metric space a nondecreasing sequence of continuous real functions converging pointwise to a continuous limit converges uniformly Theorem
- Every metric space has a completion, constructed as the equivalence classes of its Cauchy sequences Theorem
- For aₖ, bₖ > 0 with aₖ/bₖ → L: if L ∈ (0,∞) the two series share their behaviour, while L = 0 and L = ∞ give one implication each Theorem
- If xₖ → L then σₙ → L: convergence implies (C,1)-summability to the same value Theorem
- ℝ and ℝⁿ for n ≥ 1 with the Euclidean metric are complete, componentwise from the Cauchy criterion in ℝ Theorem
- Stolz-Cesaro, ∞/∞ form: if bₖ is strictly increasing and unbounded and (aₖ₊₁-aₖ)/(bₖ₊₁-bₖ) → L then aₖ/bₖ → L Theorem
- The Cantor function is well defined, satisfies c(x) ≤ c(y) whenever x ≤ y, is surjective onto [0,1], and is constant on every interval removed from the Cantor set Theorem
- The Cantor set is exactly the set of ∑_k ≥ 1 aₖ 3⁻ᵏ with every aₖ ∈ {0,2}, and this gives a bijection with {0,1}^ℕ Theorem
Dependency tree · next 3 levels
Direct dependencies and their dependencies through the next three levels: 59 results over 27 levels. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, and this result sits at the bottom with a heavier outline. Click the chart to enlarge it.
Sources
- J. K. Hunter, An Introduction to Real Analysis, Ch. 3 (standard reference, not scraped)
- Limit of a sequence (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)
- T. Tao, Analysis I, 3rd ed., §6.1 (standard reference, not scraped)
- W. Rudin, Principles of Mathematical Analysis, 3rd ed., Ch. 3 (standard reference, not scraped)