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Does there exist a metric space $(\mathbb{R}, d)$ such that the sequence $\{\frac{1}{n}\}$ converges to $3?$

Here is an answer Sequence converging to different limits

I have tried this: Let $A=\{\frac{1}{n}: n\in \mathbb{N}\}, B=3+A$. Also let

$f(x)= \begin{array}{cc} \{ & \begin{array}{cc} x & x\notin A\cup B \\ x+3 & x\in A \\ x-3 & x\in B \end{array} \end{array} $

and $d(x,y)=|f(x)-f(y)|$. Then the sequence converges to 3

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1 Answers1

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Yes, this is a successful construction!

In general, if $(M,\delta)$ is any metric space and $f\colon \Bbb R\to M$ is any injective function, then $d(x,y)=\delta(f(x),f(y))$ defines a metric on $\Bbb R$, called the "pullback" of $\delta$ to $\Bbb R$. (The idea being, just measure distances "over here" by seeing what the distances of the images are "over there".) Your construction is a special case of this, with $M =\Bbb R$ and $\delta$ being the usual metric on $\Bbb R$.

(Indeed, pullbacks are defined for any set, not just $\Bbb R$.)

Greg Martin
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