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Essential Discontinuity

Essential Discontinuity

Any discontinuity that is not removable. That is, a place where a graph is not connected and cannot be made connected simply by filling in a single point. Step discontinuities and vertical asymptotes are two types of essential discontinuities.

Formally, an essential discontinuity is a discontinuity at which the limit of the function does not exist.

 

Graph showing a step discontinuity on the y-axis, with an open circle above a filled point, and a curve extending right.

 

See also

Continuous function