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Dini derivative

  • 02-03-2008 02:08PM
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 390 ✭✭


    Hey
    Can anyone explain what a dini derivative is? Im so confused with the notation


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,481 ✭✭✭Fremen


    If you're doing maths at that level, I assume you know what a limit is. As you may know, a limit is not guaranteed to exist. For instance, the limit of Sin(1/x) does not exist as x -> 0 from above. If you graph the function, you can see that as you get closer to 0, the frequency of oscillation grows too fast for a limit to exist.

    In the same way, the derivative of a function is not always guaranteed to exist (since the derivative is a limit by definition). You can get around this problem by using liminf and limsup.

    The supremum of a set is the least upper bound on a set (it sometimes helps to think of it as the greatest element of a set, though this is not strictly correct).
    The limsup is the supremum of the set as it goes to some limit.

    Hopefully this article will help


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 390 ✭✭idunnoutellme


    Thanks Fremen I'm still not 100% sure of its use to me at the moment, but i do understard the limsup and liminf and that dini derivative is just the formula for a derivative using limits, except as it may not exist you pick the closest thing to that derivative which is its liminf and limsup?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,481 ✭✭✭Fremen


    Yeah, that's pretty much my understanding of it. I'm just working from the wikipedia definition, though.
    I never came across the dini derivative in college. It looks like it might be useful for analysing brownian motion. What context did you learn about it in?


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