Limits: A New Approach to Real Analysis [Hardcover]

Intended as an undergraduate text on real analysis, this book includes all the standard material such as sequences, infinite series, continuity, differentiation, and integration, together with worked examples and exercises. By unifying and simplifying all the various notions of limit, the author has successfully presented a novel approach to the subject matter, which has not previously appeared in book form. The author defines the term limit once only, and all of the subsequent limiting processes are seen to be special cases of this one definition. Accordingly, the subject matter attains a unity and coherence that is not to be found in the traditional approach. Students will be able to fully appreciate and understand the common source of the topics they are studying while also realising that they are variations on a theme , rather than essentially different topics, and therefore, will gain a better understanding of the subject.Broadly speaking, analysis is the study of limiting processes such as sum? ming infinite series and differentiating and integrating functions, and in any of these processes there are two issues to consider; first, there is the question of whether or not the limit exists, and second, assuming that it does, there is the problem of finding its numerical value. By convention, analysis is the study oflimiting processes in which the issue of existence is raised and tackled in a forthright manner. In fact, the problem of exis? tence overshadows that of finding the value; for example, while it might be important to know that every polynomial of odd degree has a zero (this is a statement of existence), it is not always necessary to know what this zero is (indeed, if it is irrational, we may never know what its true value is). Despite the fact that this book has much in common with other texts on analysis, its approach to the subject differs widely from any other text known to the author. In other texts, each limiting process is discussed, in detail anl32