What is a piecewise continuous function?
1 Answer
A piecewise continuous function is a function that is continuous except at a finite number of points in its domain.
Explanation:
Note that the points of discontinuity of a piecewise continuous function do not have to be removable discontinuities. That is we do not require that the function can be made continuous by redefining it at those points. It is sufficient that if we exclude those points from the domain, then the function is continuous on the restricted domain.
For example, consider the function:
graph{(y - x/abs(x))(x^2+y^2-0.001) = 0 [-5, 5, -2.5, 2.5]}
This is continuous for all
The discontinuity at
At
So the left limit and right limit disagree with one another and with the value of the function at
If we exclude the finite set of discontinuities from the domain, then the function restricted to this new domain will be continuous.
In our example, the definition of
If we graph
Slightly confusingly, the function
graph{tan(x) [-10.06, 9.94, -4.46, 5.54]}
Meanwhile, the sawtooth function
graph{3/5(abs(sin(x * pi/2))-abs(cos(x * pi/2))-abs(sin(x * pi/2)^3)/6+abs(cos(x * pi/2)^3)/6) * tan(x * pi/2)/abs(tan(x * pi/2))+1/2 [-2.56, 2.44, -0.71, 1.79]}