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Bakkot comments on Open thread, August 19-25, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: David_Gerard 19 August 2013 06:58AM

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Comment author: Bakkot 24 August 2013 06:48:08PM 1 point [-]

The derivative, the second derivative, or even the function itself could easily be discontinuous at this point.

But needn't be! See for example f(x) = exp(-1/x) (x > 0), 0 (x ≤ 0).

Wikipedia has an analysis.

(Of course, the space of objects isn't exactly isomorphic to the real line, but it's still a neat example.)

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 August 2013 07:11:47PM 1 point [-]

Agreed, but it is not obvious to me that my utility function needs to be differentiable at that point.