I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that:
a) This is a rather unmotivated question.
b) I can't remember whether or not I've asked this before, but searching doesn't seem to turn anything up so ...
Consider some "shape" function phi:mathbfRtomathbfR. Then given some function f:mathbfRtomathbfR, one can ask whether the "difference quotient",
limytoxfracf(y)−f(x)phi(y−x),
exists at various points x. Letting phi(x)=x corresponds to taking normal derivatives, and intuitively when the limit exists this means that near x, the function f "looks like" phi does near 0.
However, if the ratio phi(x)/x is not bounded above or away from 0 as xto0 (I'm mostly thinking of the case when it is neither, so that phi is "wildly oscillating" in some sense), then anywhere the above limit exists and is nonzero, the function f is necessarily non-differentiable.
My question: If phi is some wildly oscillating function as described above (pick your favorite), can there be an f for which this limit exists everywhere?
(Edit: I suppose I really want phi and f to be continuous functions.)
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