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The Cantor function is well defined, satisfies whenever , is surjective onto , and is constant on every interval removed from the Cantor set
Statement
Let be the Cantor set, and as in The Cantor function on , defined on the Cantor set through ternary digits and extended constantly across each removed interval. Then:
- is well defined with values in , and for every , so extends ;
- whenever ;
- is surjective onto (Injection, surjection, bijection), and , ;
- is constant on whenever , and ; and every lies in the open interval of such a pair, so is constant on a whole neighbourhood of every point of outside .
Claim 2 is what "monotone" names for a function; that word is not used here, because Nondecreasing, increasing, nonincreasing, decreasing, monotone, and eventually monotone sequences is about sequences and no definition of a monotone function is available at this point in the reading order. Claim 4 is what "constant on every interval removed in the construction" means: the removed intervals are gaps of in the sense of claim 4, as illustrates. No claim whatever is made here about continuity, for which no definition is available at this point in the reading order.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The Cantor set , the set of -valued sequences, the bijection , and the functions and of The Cantor function on , defined on the Cantor set through ternary digits and extended constantly across each removed interval. For write for its digit sequence.
is a bijection from onto , with two-sided inverse ; for , with values in ; , the supremum of a nonempty set bounded above by and containing (The Cantor set is exactly the set of with every , and this gives a bijection with , The Cantor function on , defined on the Cantor set through ternary digits and extended constantly across each removed interval, Injection, surjection, bijection, Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property), Lower bound, bounded below, bounded set, Suprema and infima are unique).
for , so and ; convergent series add and scale termwise; a series of nonnegative terms has nonnegative sum and all partial sums at most the sum (For , , and for the series diverges, Convergent series add and scale termwise, A series of nonnegative terms converges iff its partial sums are bounded, and then the sum is their supremum, Series, partial sums, convergence and the sum, divergence, and the tail series, Integer powers , Laws of integer exponents).
is closed and ; is the set of points every neighbourhood of which meets , and a closed set equals its closure (The Cantor set is compact, perfect, uncountable, nowhere dense and of measure zero, and it contains no interval of positive length, so its only nonempty connected subsets are single points, The Cantor middle-thirds set as the intersection of the sets obtained by removing open middle thirds, Open subset of (every point has a neighbourhood inside it), closed subset (complement open), and clopen, The closure equals the set together with its limit points, equals the set of points every neighbourhood of which meets it, and is the smallest closed superset; a set is closed iff it contains its limit points, Interior, closure, boundary and exterior of a subset of , The -neighbourhood and the punctured -neighbourhood of a point of ).
Suprema: exactly when is an upper bound and for every some has ; infima exist for nonempty sets bounded below, and exactly when is a lower bound and for every some has ; both are unique; a supremum is monotone in the set, since an upper bound of a larger set bounds a smaller one (Epsilon characterisation of the supremum, Epsilon characterisation of the infimum, Every nonempty set bounded below has an infimum, Greatest lower bound (infimum), Suprema and infima are unique, Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property), Lower bound, bounded below, bounded set).
Recursion and induction on ; every nonempty subset of has a least element (The recursion theorem, The principle of mathematical induction, The well-ordering principle).
; convergence is tested against rational ; a convergent sequence has exactly one limit; and for (For the sequence is null, and for the sequence diverges to , Limits and Cauchy sequences of reals, A sequence has at most one limit, Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences, Basic properties of the absolute value).
Every nonempty finite set of reals has a minimum (Every nonempty finite set of reals has a maximum and a minimum, Maximum and minimum of a set).
and are the intervals of Intervals of : the nine order-convex forms, nondegeneracy, and length, and (The -neighbourhood and the punctured -neighbourhood of a point of ).
Ordered-field arithmetic: , so , and ; adding a constant and multiplying by a positive preserve an inequality; the order is total and transitive (The multiplicative identity is positive, Order is preserved by adding a constant and by adding inequalities, Sign rules for products and monotonicity of multiplication, Ordered field, Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property)). These order-arithmetic facts are stated by their sources for the strict order only; the nonstrict forms used below follow by adjoining the equality case, in which the two sides coincide.
Proof
Comparison of two digit sequences. Let in and let be the least index with , which exists by [L5]; suppose and . Then by [L2], the terms with vanish, and the tail satisfies by [L2], since ; hence . The same computation with the halved digits gives with , so . Consequently, for with one has : this is trivial if , and otherwise the least index at which the digit sequences differ must have the digit of equal to , by the first computation applied both ways.
Values at the endpoints. The constant sequence has and ; the constant sequence has and , by [L2]. Both and lie in by [L3].
Claims 1 and 2. For the set is nonempty and bounded above by by [L1], so exists, is unique and lies in by [L1] and [L4]; that is claim 1 apart from the extension property. If then , so by [L4], which is claim 2. And for : , while is an upper bound of by step 1.1, so by [L4].
The two endpoints of a gap carry the same value of . Let with and , and put , , with the least index where they differ; by step 1.1 and we have and . If some had , let agree with except that ; then , by step 1.1, and still differs from first at with , so by step 1.1, putting in , which is empty. Hence for every . Symmetrically, if some had , replacing it by gives with and , again impossible; hence for every . Writing , [L2] now gives and , so .
Claim 4, first half. Let with and , and let . Every with satisfies or : indeed if then and force . In the first case by step 1.1, and in the second by step 2.2. So is an upper bound of and belongs to it, whence by [L4]: is constant on , with the value given by step 2.1.
Claim 3. Let . Let be for and for , a definition by cases on the total order, and by [L5] let satisfy and ; put when and otherwise, so . An induction ([L5]) gives for every , since gives and gives by [L9]; a second induction gives for every , the step being . Hence , so by [L6] the partial sums converge to and . Now lies in , the point lies in by [L1], and ; by step 2.1, . With step 1.2 and step 2.1 this also gives and .
Claim 4, second half. Let . The set is nonempty by [L3] and bounded above by , so exists by [L4]; by [L4] every meets , so by [L3], and with , so . The set is nonempty by [L3], since and , and is bounded below by , so exists by [L4]; likewise and . If satisfied , then would put and force , while would put and force , and one of the two holds by totality of the order ([L9]); so . By step 3.1 the function is constant on , and for by [L7], [L8] and [L9].
Claims 1 and 2 are step 2.1, claim 3 is step 3.2, and claim 4 is steps 3.1 and 4.1 together; so all four hold.
Remarks
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The gap worked out. and , both in , and (The Cantor middle-thirds set as the intersection of the sets obtained by removing open middle thirds) shows . Step 2.2 gives , so on ; this and three further values are computed in The Cantor function takes the value on all of , and its values at , and ↗.
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Where each hypothesis is used. Step 1.1 is the only place the ternary comparison is made, and everything else rests on it: monotonicity of comes from monotonicity of the set , and the constancy across gaps comes from step 2.2, which is a statement about digit sequences and not about the topology of .
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What is deliberately absent. Continuity, differentiability and any statement about the derivative of are outside the vocabulary available at this point in the reading order and none of them is asserted anywhere above. What is proved is that climbs from to , never decreases, misses no value of , and is locally constant off a set of measure zero (The Cantor set is compact, perfect, uncountable, nowhere dense and of measure zero, and it contains no interval of positive length, so its only nonempty connected subsets are single points). That combination is already the paradoxical content of the example.
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Surjectivity is a binary expansion theorem in disguise. Step 3.2 constructs the binary digits of an arbitrary by the same canonical recursion that The Cantor set is exactly the set of with every , and this gives a bijection with uses for ternary digits, so no general expansion theorem is presupposed and no choice is made.
Depends on
- The Cantor function on $[0,1]$, defined on the Cantor set through ternary digits and extended constantly across each removed interval
- The Cantor set is exactly the set of $\sum_{k \ge 1} a_k 3^{-k}$ with every $a_k \in \{0,2\}$, and this gives a bijection with $\{0,1\}^{\mathbb{N}}$
- The Cantor set is compact, perfect, uncountable, nowhere dense and of measure zero, and it contains no interval of positive length, so its only nonempty connected subsets are single points
- The Cantor middle-thirds set as the intersection of the sets $C_n$ obtained by removing open middle thirds
- Series, partial sums, convergence and the sum, divergence, and the tail series
- For $|r| < 1$, $\sum_{k \ge 0} r^k = 1/(1-r)$, and for $|r| \ge 1$ the series diverges
- A series of nonnegative terms converges iff its partial sums are bounded, and then the sum is their supremum
- Convergent series add and scale termwise
- Intervals of $\mathbb{R}$: the nine order-convex forms, nondegeneracy, and length
- Lower bound, bounded below, bounded set
- Suprema and infima are unique
- Epsilon characterisation of the supremum
- Greatest lower bound (infimum)
- Epsilon characterisation of the infimum
- Every nonempty set bounded below has an infimum
- Integer powers $a^m$
- Laws of integer exponents
- The recursion theorem
- The principle of mathematical induction
- The well-ordering principle
- For $|r| < 1$ the sequence $r^k$ is null, and for $|r| > 1$ the sequence $|r|^k$ diverges to $+\infty$
- Limits and Cauchy sequences of reals
- A sequence has at most one limit
- Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences
- Open subset of $\mathbb{R}$ (every point has a neighbourhood inside it), closed subset (complement open), and clopen
- The closure equals the set together with its limit points, equals the set of points every neighbourhood of which meets it, and is the smallest closed superset; a set is closed iff it contains its limit points
- Interior, closure, boundary and exterior of a subset of $\mathbb{R}$
- The $\varepsilon$-neighbourhood and the punctured $\varepsilon$-neighbourhood of a point of $\mathbb{R}$
- Every nonempty finite set of reals has a maximum and a minimum
- Maximum and minimum of a set
- Injection, surjection, bijection
- Basic properties of the absolute value
- Complete ordered field (least-upper-bound property)
- Ordered field
- The multiplicative identity is positive
- Order is preserved by adding a constant and by adding inequalities
- Sign rules for products and monotonicity of multiplication
Used by
- The Cantor function is continuous on [0,1] Corollary
- The Cantor function defines a nonclassical Stieltjes integrator and ∫₀¹ 1 dc=1 Example
- The Cantor function is continuous and of bounded variation but not absolutely continuous Example
- The Cantor function takes the value 1/2 on all of [1/3, 2/3], and its values at 1/9, 1/4 and 7/9 Example
- The Cantor set has measure zero, yet the Cantor function maps it onto all of [0,1]: a null set can have image an interval of length 1 Example
- The Cantor function is continuous and nondecreasing, climbs from 0 to 1, and is constant on every interval removed in the construction of the Cantor set, so all of its increase happens on a set of measure zero Remark
Cited to discharge well-definedness by The Cantor function on [0,1], defined on the Cantor set through ternary digits and extended constantly across each removed interval.
Dependency tree · next 3 levels
Direct dependencies and their dependencies through the next three levels: 152 results over 35 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
- Cantor function (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)
- Cantor set (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)
- Stanford Math 205A, Homework 1 (standard reference, not scraped)