Apparently the set of discontinuity of derivatives is weird in its own sense. Following are the examples that I know so far:
1. g(x)={x2sin(1x)x∈(0,1]0x=0
g′ is discontinuous at x=0.
2. The Volterra function defined on the ternary Cantor set is differentiable everywhere but the derivative is discontinuous on the whole of Cantor set ,that is on a nowhere dense set of measure zero.
3. The Volterra function defined on the Fat-Cantor set is differentiable everywhere but the derivative is discontinuous on the whole of Fat-Cantor set ,that is on a set of positive measure, but not full measure.
4. I am yet to find a derivative which is discontinuous on a set of full measure.
Some good discussion about this can be found here and here.
Questions:
1.What are some examples of functions whose derivative is discontinuous on a dense set of zero measure , say on the rationals?
2.What are some examples of functions whose derivative is discontinuous on a dense set of positive measure , say on the irrationals?
Update: One can find a function which is differentiable everywhere but whose derivative is discontinuous on a dense set of zero measure here.
Answer
There is no everywhere differentiable function f on [0,1] such that f′ is discontinuous at each irrational there. That's because f′, being the everywhere pointwise limit of continuous functions, is continuous on a dense Gδ subset of [0,1]. This is a result of Baire. Thus f′ can't be continuous only on a subset of the rationals, a set of the first category.
But there is a differentiable function whose derivative is discontinuous on a set of full measure.
Proof: For every Cantor set K⊂[0,1] there is a "Volterra function" f relative to K, which for the purpose at hand means a differentiable function f on [0,1] such that i)|f|≤1 on [0,1], ii) |f′|≤1 on [0,1], iii) f′ is continuous on [0,1]∖K, iv) f′ is discontinuous at each point of K.
Now we can choose disjoint Cantor sets Kn⊂[0,1] such that ∑nm(Kn)=1. For each n we choose a Volterra function fn as above. Then define
F=∞∑n=1fn2n.
F is well defined by this series, and is differentiable on [0,1]. That's because each summand above is differentiable there, and the sum of derivatives converges uniformly on [0,1]. So we have
F′(x)=∞∑n=1f′n(x)2n for each x∈[0,1].
Let x0∈∪Kn. Then x0 is in some Kn0. We can write
F′(x)=f′n0(x)2n0+∑n≠n0f′n(x)2n.
Now the sum on the right is continuous at x0, being the uniform limit of functions continuous at x0. But f′n0/2n0 is not continuous at x0. This shows F′ is not continuous at x0. Since x0 was an aribtrary point in ∪Kn, F′ is discontinuous on a set of full measure as desired.
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