Where is the following $\Bbb R^3 \rightarrow \Bbb R$ function continuously differentiable?

58 Views Asked by At

Where is $f(x,y,z)=\begin{cases} 0 & \text{$xyx=0$} \\ x^2y^2z^2\sin \big (\frac{1}{xyz} \big) & \text{$xyz \ne 0$} \end{cases}$ continuously differentiable?

What I got so far is that $f$ can be written as a composition, $f=h\circ g$ where $g(x,y,z)=xyz$ and $h(t)=t^2\sin \big(\frac{1}{t} \big)$. By the chain rule we have that: $\nabla f(x,y,z) = h'(g(x,y,z))\cdot \nabla g(x,y,z) = \big (2xyz\cdot \sin \big( \frac{1}{xyz} \big) - \cos \big( \frac{1}{xyz} \big)\big)\cdot (yz,xz,xy)$.

Is that even correct? What should the gradient be at the origin or in other points where $xyz=0$? I'm really not sure how this fits into the mix. Also, is the function continuously differentiable in these points?

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On BEST ANSWER

Yes, what you have is correct.

Now you need to consider the case, where

$$x = 0 \quad \lor \quad y = 0 \quad \lor \quad z = 0,$$

and then consider the function $$f = h \circ g.$$

After finding $Df$ piecewisely, you need to check whether that piecewise function, $Df$, is continuous or not.