Question about continuity and the Epsilon-Delta definition

continuityepsilon-deltareal-analysis

So, I' currently working through an example:

Show that $\lim \limits_{x \to 0}\frac{x^3}{x-4}\cos{(\frac{1}{x})}=0$ using the $\epsilon-\delta$ definition.

So far I have the following working:

For any $\epsilon>0$, we must find a $\delta>0$ such that if $|x-0|<\delta$ then:

$|\frac{x^3}{x-4}\cos{(\frac{1}{x})}-0|<\epsilon, \qquad \forall x \in(-\delta,0)\cup(0,\delta)$

I know that the cosine function is bound by $[-1,1]$, so we can say:

$|\frac{x^3}{x-4}\cos{(\frac{1}{x})}-0|=|\frac{x^3}{x-4}||cos{(\frac{1}{x})}|\leq|\frac{x^3}{x-4}|<\epsilon$

Now the trouble I'm having is developing an upper bound for $|\frac{x^3}{x-4}|$. My suspicion is that since we a looking for a small neighbour hood of $\delta$; if I bind $\delta\leq1$ then $|x^3|$ should also be bounded the same way implying: $-1<x<1$.

My gut is telling me that $\delta=\epsilon$ is going to be the road I need to go down, but I want to prove it. Are there any insights I'm missing? Should I be placing an lower bound on $\frac{1}{x-4}$ by putting a positive upper bound on $x-4$?

Thanks for reading.

Best Answer

Let's finish it based on your ideas.

As you said, choosing $\delta\leq1$ is a good idea. Notice that it gives us that

$$\lvert x^2\rvert< 1,$$ $$\lvert x-4\rvert\geq\lvert \lvert x\rvert-4\rvert=4-\lvert x\rvert>3.$$

Using this we have that

$$\left\lvert\frac{x^3}{x-4}\right\rvert<\frac{\lvert x\rvert }{3}<\lvert x\rvert.$$

Clearly, as you guessed yourself, $\delta=\varepsilon$ works wonders here. Thus, with

$$\delta=\min\left\{1,\varepsilon\right\}$$

we are done.

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