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Algebra of limits: sums, scalar multiples, products and quotients
Statement
Let and be sequences of reals (Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences) converging to and respectively (Limits and Cauchy sequences of reals), and let . Then
and if in addition and for every , then
The quotient case rests on an eventual lower bound for , proved below rather than assumed: for all sufficiently large .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: Sequences , of reals with converging to and converging to , and a real (Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences, Limits and Cauchy sequences of reals). For the last two claims we assume in addition and for every .
Convergence, quantified over rational (Limits and Cauchy sequences of reals).
Absolute value and the triangle inequality: , , if and only if , , and (Basic properties of the absolute value, The triangle inequality).
Real versus rational : for every real there is a rational with , by density (The rationals embed densely in the reals) or by the Archimedean property (Every complete ordered field is Archimedean) applied to (Inverses of positives are positive, and reciprocation reverses order); consequently the convergence test of Limits and Cauchy sequences of reals may equivalently be run with real (Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences).
Convergent sequences are bounded (Every convergent sequence is bounded), and a constant sequence is bounded by (Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences).
A null sequence times a bounded sequence is null (A null sequence times a bounded sequence is null).
Reverse triangle inequality: , hence (The reverse triangle inequality).
Inverses and order: implies ; implies ; for (Inverses of positives are positive, and reciprocation reverses order, Field).
Order arithmetic in : adding a constant and adding inequalities preserve the order, multiplying a strict inequality by a positive factor preserves it, and and compose transitively; trichotomy holds, and since means or , an element with and satisfies (Order is preserved by adding a constant and by adding inequalities, Sign rules for products and monotonicity of multiplication, Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property), Ordered field). Moreover and is invertible: in any ordered field (The multiplicative identity is positive) and the positives are closed under addition, so and in particular (Ordered field), whence exists (Field).
Rational arithmetic: is a rational whenever is, and (The rationals form a totally ordered field); the order on is total, so finitely many thresholds admit a common index ( is a linear order on ).
Proof
Reduction to null sequences: for any sequence of reals and any real , the statements " converges to " and " converges to " are literally the same condition, because for every .
Sum rule, in general form. Let and be any convergent sequences of reals and let be rational; take with for and with for , and let be an index at least as large as both. For , ; hence , and in particular .
Boundedness: every convergent sequence of reals is bounded, and every constant sequence is bounded by .
Quotient preparation. Assume and for every . Then by [L2], so ; running the convergence test of with the real number as tolerance, which [L3] licenses, produces with for all .
Scalar rule, in general form. Let and let . By step 1.1 the sequence is null and by step 1.3 the constant sequence is bounded, so is null by [L5]; by step 1.1 again, , and in particular .
Product rule, in general form. Let and , and write . By step 1.1 both and are null; by step 1.3 both and the constant sequence are bounded; so both and are null by [L5], and their sum is null by step 1.2 applied with both limits equal to . By step 1.1, , and in particular .
Eventual lower bound. For every , the reverse triangle inequality gives ; so for all , and in particular there.
Difference rule. Applying step 2.1 to the sequence with gives ; the sum rule of step 1.2 applied to and then gives .
Reciprocal estimate. For we have and , so [L7] applied to gives , and therefore .
Reciprocal rule. Let be an arbitrary real and put , a real ; by [L3] there is with for all . For every at least as large as both and , step 3.2 gives ; hence .
Quotient rule. By step 4.1 the sequence converges to , so the product rule of step 2.2 applied to and gives .
All the claims are established: the sum rule in step 1.2, the scalar rule in step 2.1, the difference rule in step 3.1, the product rule in step 2.2, and the reciprocal and quotient rules in steps 4.1 and 5.1.
Remarks
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The quotient case is where proofs usually cheat. The estimate is worthless until is known to stay away from : without a lower bound the denominator can be arbitrarily small and the fraction arbitrarily large, even while shrinks. Step 2.3 supplies that bound, for , and it is proved from the reverse triangle inequality, not assumed.
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The hypothesis for every is only there so that is defined for every index. It is not needed for the limit: step 2.3 shows from on, so a sequence with has at most finitely many zero terms, and by Convergence depends only on the tail one may pass to the -th tail and read the conclusion there.
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The hypothesis cannot be dropped. With and , both sequences converge: the first is constant (Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences) and the second is null (FALSE: limits preserve strict inequalities), so . Yet , and no real bounds every , by the Archimedean property (Every complete ordered field is Archimedean); so the quotient sequence is unbounded, hence not convergent by Every convergent sequence is bounded.
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Nothing in the proof uses completeness of beyond the Archimedean property invoked in [L3], so the same rules hold verbatim for sequences of rationals.
Depends on
- Limits and Cauchy sequences of reals
- Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences
- Every convergent sequence is bounded
- A null sequence times a bounded sequence is null
- The triangle inequality
- Basic properties of the absolute value
- The reverse triangle inequality
- Every complete ordered field is Archimedean
- Inverses of positives are positive, and reciprocation reverses order
- The rationals embed densely in the reals
- Order is preserved by adding a constant and by adding inequalities
- Sign rules for products and monotonicity of multiplication
- The multiplicative identity is positive
- The rationals form a totally ordered field
- $\le$ is a linear order on $\mathbb{N}$
- Field
- Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property)
- Ordered field
Used by
- 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 limit inferior is the least subsequential limit in overlineℝ Corollary
- ∑ k^-1/2 diverges and ∑ k⁻² converges, and both have root limit exactly 1 Counterexample
- A summability matrix failing exactly one Silverman-Toeplitz condition and transforming a convergent sequence to a divergent one 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
- Infinite products: partial products, and convergence to a nonzero limit after finitely many vanishing factors Definition
- A Lipschitz function on ℚ extends uniquely to a Lipschitz function on ℝ with the same constant Example
- A series with ratio limit exactly 1 that Raabe decides Example
- Stolz-Cesaro gives (1 + 2 + … + n)/n² → 1/2 and (1ᵖ + … + nᵖ)/nᵖ⁺¹ → 1/(p+1) for natural p Example
- Taking two positive terms for each negative one rearranges the alternating harmonic series to 3/2 times its sum, by the identity T₃ₙ = S₄ₙ + tfrac12 S₂ₙ 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 four standard limits n^1/n → 1, a^1/n → 1, n^α/(1+p)ⁿ → 0 and xᵏ/k! → 0, computed Example
- The radius-one series with coefficients 1/(n+1)², 1/(n+1) and 1 realise absolute, conditional and divergent endpoint behaviour 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: limits preserve strict inequalities False statement
- FALSE: limsup aₖ^1/k = limsup aₖ₊₁/aₖ for every positive sequence False statement
- ∑ (bₖ - bₖ₊₁) converges iff (bₖ) converges, with sum b₀ - lim bₖ Lemma
- A series converges iff each of its tail series converges, and the sum splits as s_N plus the N-th tail Lemma
- Complete metrizability: admitting a topologically equivalent complete metric is preserved by homeomorphism and by closed subspaces, and (0,∞) has it without being complete Lemma
- Convergent series add and scale termwise Lemma
- For every a > 0, a^1/n → 1 Lemma
- For every real x, xᵏ/k! → 0 Lemma
- For fixed k, binomnk/nᵏ tends to 1/k! Lemma
- If a series converges then its terms tend to 0 Lemma
- Limits preserve non-strict inequalities Lemma
- The absolute value is compatible with limits Lemma
- Conventions for sequences: indexing, eventually, lim, and rational ε Remark
- A contraction of a nonempty complete metric space into itself has exactly one fixed point, the limit of the iterates from any starting point 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 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
- Abel's test: if ∑ aₖ converges and (bₖ) is monotone and bounded then ∑ aₖ bₖ converges Theorem
- Base-b expansions: for an integer b ≥ 2 every x ∈ [0,1) is the sum of ∑_j ≥ 0 dⱼ / b^ j+1 for digits dⱼ < b, and the digit sequence is unique among those that are not eventually constantly b-1 Theorem
- Dirichlet's test: if the partial sums of ∑ aₖ are bounded and (bₖ) is nonincreasing with bₖ → 0, then ∑ aₖ bₖ converges Theorem
- Every contractive sequence is Cauchy, hence converges, with error bound |x - xₖ| ≤ cᵏ⁻¹|x₂ - x₁|/(1-c) for k ≥ 1 Theorem
- Every metric space has a completion, constructed as the equivalence classes of its Cauchy sequences Theorem
…and 11 more results.
Dependency tree · next 3 levels
Direct dependencies and their dependencies through the next three levels: 74 results over 29 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
- OpenStax Calculus Volume 2, §5.1 Sequences (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)