Ivan Shishkin, Rye (1878)

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Limit of a sum of periodic functions

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Solution

Solution by Ancient Tree · EN

  1. Let’s start with a simpler case, T1=T2T_1=T_2. Then h=f+gh=f+g is also periodic with period T1T_1. But a periodic function which converges as x+x\rightarrow +\infty is constant, as shown here (link to add, the thing is broken right now). This lemma will prove useful many times.

  2. Now assume that T1T_1 and T2T_2 are distinct. The idea is to check how hh changes when we move according to, say, the period of ff :

h(x+T1)=f(x+T1)+g(x+T1)=f(x)+g(x+T1)h\left(x+T_1\right)=f\left(x+T_1\right)+g\left(x+T_1\right)=f(x)+g\left(x+T_1\right)This is almost h(x)h(x). Let’s make this term appear :

h(x+T1)=f(x)+g(x)g(x)+g(x+T1)=h(x)+g(x+T1)g(x)h\left(x+T_1\right)=f(x)+g(x)-g(x)+g\left(x+T_1\right)=h(x)+g\left(x+T_1\right)-g(x)

We get the following interesting property :

h(x+T1)h(x)=g(x+T1)g(x)h\left(x+T_1\right)-h(x)=g\left(x+T_1\right)-g(x)

which indicates that, when moving according to T1T_1, only the change gg is relevant, and not the change in ff, which makes sense.
By assumption, h(x)h(x) converges to a limit when x+x\rightarrow +\infty, so h(x+T1)h(x+T_1) converges to the same limit ; and so we have that :

g(x+T1)g(x)x+0g\left(x+T_1\right)-g(x) \underset{x \rightarrow+\infty}{\longrightarrow} 0

. But this shows that gg is periodic with period T1T_1, since g(x+T1)g(x)g(x+T_1)-g(x) is itself T2T_2-periodic, so by the same argument as earlier, it has to be 0.

In the end, we get that ff and gg share the same period T1T_1, so f+gf+g too ; by again the same argument, we deduce that f+gf+g is constant.

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