Convergence of Cauchy’s sequence

cauchy-sequencesconvergence-divergencemetric-spaces

I understood that every convergent sequence is a Cauchy sequence. It seems that the converse is not necessarily true. An example given is the sequence $\{x_n\}$, where $x_n = (0.1)^n$ is a Cauchy sequence, but not convergent in (0,1). So, Can I safely say that every Cauchy sequence actually converges to some limit and it is said to be convergent only if the limit point is a part of the given metric space? Because the same sequence is convergent on $\mathbb R$, but not in (0,1)

Best Answer

Not always. A space in which every Cauchy sequence is a convergent sequence is called a complete space, but not every imaginable space is complete.

The set of real numbers is complete, which means that a Cauchy sequence of real numbers will have a real limit. Other sets, like interval $(0,1)$ or the set of rational numbers $\mathbb Q$ are not complete, and the Cauchy sequence of numbers from them do not have to have a limit in these sets.

However, when you have a non-complete set, you can always construct its completion, by adding new elements to this set in such a way that the result will be a complete set. So you can say that every Cauchy sequence of elements of some space has a limit in the completion of this set, but not necessarily in the set itself. For example, the completion of interval $(0,1)$ is interval $[0,1]$, and the completion of $\mathbb Q$ is $\mathbb R$.