Infinities

Juan Comesaa, Paradoxes

September 1, 2014

Limits
Sequences
A sequence is an ordered list. Thus, (1, 2, 3) is a finite sequence, and (3, 2, 1)
is a different sequence. (1, 2, 3, . . . ) is an infinite sequence. Well use an to refer
to an arbitrary sequence (and sometimes also to its nth member). Particular
sequences that can be generated by a simple function from the natural numbers
can be referred to by appealing to that function. Thus, using the infinity symbol
th
, (an )
n=1 = n refers to the infinite series just mentioned: the series whose n
member is n, for all n.
Some infinite sequences have limits. Intuitively, it is usually useful to think of
the limit of a sequence, if it exists, as the number that the sequence approaches, or
gets closer and closer to. Take, for instance, the sequence (1, 12 , 13 , 14 , . . .)that
1
is to say, (an )
n=1 = n . The successive members of that sequence get closer and
closer to 0. They never actually reach 0, but we can get as close to 0 as we want.
Indeed, for any real number  > 0, no matter how small, we can find an integer N
such that, for all the members an of the sequence for which n N, |0 an | < .
Thus, if  = 12 , then N = 3, if  = 13 , then N = 4, and so on.
We can generalize and give the following definition of the limit of an infinite
sequence:
The sequence (an ) has the limit L as n tends to infinity if and only
if: for any real positive number , there is an integer N such that
|L an | <  for all n N .
Or, to put it in a common notation:
lim (an ) = L iff ()(N )( > 0 ((n)(n N |L an | < )))

We can think of this notion of limit in terms of a game between two players,
A and B. Player A announces that the limit of a series (an ) is some real L. B
then challenges A by naming a real . As task now is to find a natural N such
that all the an elements after aN are within  of L. B can now challenge A once
again by picking a smaller . If A can satisfy B no matter how small an  B
picks, then lim (an ) = L.
n

Another way of thinking of the concept of a limit is as follows. If all but a finite
number of members of a sequence have property P , then we will say that almost
all the members of the sequence have P . There may be a lot of members that do
not have P a quadrillion, saybut they will always be dwarfed by the infinitely
many members that do have P . So, for instance, almost all positive integers are
greater than a quadrillion. So, to say that lim (an ) = L is to say that if I is
n
any interval, no matter how small, with L at its center, then almost all of the
numbers an lie within L.
1
= 0. What about
n n
1
2n ? You should recognize

Lets look at some examples. We already saw that lim

this

sequence= ( 12 , 14 , 18 , . . .)which we can denote as

this
sequenceit is at the center of Zenos dichotomy paradox. That sequence, its
easy to see, also has 0 as its limit: lim 21n = 0. Theres another sequence closely
n

n 1

related to Zenos dichotomy: ( 12 , 34 , 78 , 15

16 , . . .)that is to say, (an )n=1 = n2 .
Its also easy to see that the limit of that sequence is 1. In all these cases, the
limit is not identical to any of the an s, but it could beindeed, all of them could
be identical to the limit (and therefore to each other). For instance, (1, 1, 1, . . . )
has limit 1.

A sequence with a limit is called convergent. A sequence without a limit is

called divergent. It is easy to see that the sequence (1, 2, 3, 4, . . . ) does not
have a limit. For every number that you pick as a possible limit, almost all of the
members of that sequence will be greater than that number. Certain oscillating
sequences do not have a limit either, like (1, 2, 1, 2, . . . ), (-1, 1, -1, 1, . . . ) and
(1, 12 , 1, 13 , 1, 14 , 1, . . .). We still distinguish, within divergent sequences, certain
special cases. For instance, if the members of the sequence an become so large
that eventually any of them is larger than any preassigned number N , then we
say that an tends to infinity, and we write lim an = . This terminology is
n
useful, but can be misleading: remember that a sequence that tends to infinity
is still divergent, for is not a number. Sequences can also tend to (can
you give an example?).
Sums
We can add the members of a sequence together. For finite sequences, it is
perfectly obvious how to do this. But mathematicians want to talk about the
sum of all the elements of infinite sequences as well. To do this, they take first
all the partial sums of the sequence. A partial sum is the sum of a finite
2

1
sub-sequence of a sequence. Thus, if we take the infinite sequence (an )
n=1 = n ,
we can form a different sequence, the sequence of all its partial sums. This
1
is called a series. The first few members of the series for (an )
n=1 = n are
1 5 13
( 2 , 6 , 12 , . . .). We then say that the sum of all the members of an infinite
sequence is the limit (if it exists) of the corresponding series. In the case of
the sequence we are considering, although the original sequence has limit 0, the
series corresponding to all its partial sums diverges (in this case, it tends to
infinity).

As we saw above, the series corresponding to the dichotomy sequence, (an )

n=1 =
n2 1
,
tends
to
1.
2
n