TITLE: Continuous functions are differentiable on a measurable set?
QUESTION [32 upvotes]: I came across the following challenging problem in my self-study:
Let $f: \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ be continuous. Then the set of points where $f$ is differentiable is a measurable set.
I am having trouble thinking of where to begin in proving this result, and wanted to see if anyone visiting had some suggestions on how to proceed.

REPLY [13 votes]: What follows is taken from a sci.math post of mine from 16 May 2006.
Let $f:{\mathbb R} \rightarrow {\mathbb R}$ be arbitrary. Then the set of points where $f$ does not have a finite derivative is a $G_{\delta \sigma}$ set. This is also true for the set of points where $f$ does not have a finite left derivative or the set of points where $f$ does not have a finite right derivative. A proof of this is given after the next paragraph.
Conversely, given any $G_{\delta}$ set $G_1$ and $G_{\delta \sigma}$ set $G_2$ such that $G_2$ has Lebesgue measure zero, then there exists a continuous function $f:{\mathbb R} \rightarrow {\mathbb R}$ whose non-differentiability set is precisely $G_1 \cup G_2.$ This was proved by Zygmunt Zahorski (1914-1998) in 1941 and re-published in French in 1946 (Zbl 61.11302; MR 9,231a). For the 1946 French paper, see http://tinyurl.com/3zwca22.
The first statement above for continuous $f$ follows from the fact that $f$ has a finite derivative at $x$ if and only if $x$ belongs to
$$\bigcap_{k=1}^{\infty} \;\bigcup_{n=1}^{\infty} \;\; \bigcap_{0 < |\eta| < \frac{1}{n}} \;\; \bigcap_{0 < |\delta| < \frac{1}{n}} \; \left\{x:\;\; \left| \frac{f(x + \eta) - f(x)}{\eta} \;\; - \;\;  \frac{f(x + \delta) - f(x)}{\delta} \right| \; \leq \frac{1}{k}\right\}$$
To see that this result holds for an arbitrary function $f$ (not necessarily continuous), we relativize the above decomposition to $C(f)$, the continuity set of $f$. That is, consider the sets $\{x \in C(f): |$ stuff $| \leq \frac{1}{k}\}.$ This will show that the set where $f$ has a finite derivative is an $F_{\sigma \delta}$ subset of the space $C(f),$ where $C(f)$ has the subspace topology from ${\mathbb R}.$ ("Subset", because every point at which a finite derivative exists is a point of continuity.) Hence, this set is the intersection of $C(f)$ with an $F_{\sigma \delta}$ set in ${\mathbb R}$ (subspace topology stuff), and therefore this set is $F_{\sigma \delta}$ in ${\mathbb R}$ (because $C(f)$ has a lower Borel class, being $G_{\delta}$ in ${\mathbb R}).$