TITLE: Weaker version of Cauchy sequence criteria
QUESTION [9 upvotes]: Possible Duplicate:
Why doesn't $d(x_n,x_{n+1})\rightarrow 0$ as $n\rightarrow\infty$ imply ${x_n}$ is Cauchy? 

my question is this:

The following definition is weaker than the definition of Cauchy sequences: 
$\forall \; \epsilon > 0, \;\exists N \in \mathbb{N} \;s.t.\; \forall\; n \geq N, \; |a_{n+1}-a_n | < \epsilon.$
Show that this is not equivalent to $(a_n)$ being a Cauchy sequence.

The definition of Cauchy sequence is: 
A sequence $(s_n)$ is Cauchy if (and only if) for each $\epsilon > 0$ there exists an integer $N$ with the property that $|s_n-s_m| < \epsilon$ whenever $n\geq N$ and $m \geq N$.
Note that a sequence (of real numbers) is convergent if and only if it is Cauchy.

So I see an (the?) obvious difference between these two in that the Cauchy criteria demands that all values in a sequence above a certain index ($N$) are within a prescribed tolerance of each other, whether adjacent or not. This is where the question is weaker, in that it only requires the immediately adjacent values of the sequence to be within a tolerance of $\epsilon$. This would then allow, by taking successive differences of adjacent values, to accumulate a difference greater than $\epsilon$. This is seen as,
$$\left| \sum_{i=1}^{n+1}\,a_i - \sum_{i=1}^{n}\,a_i\right| < \epsilon,\quad
\left|\sum_{i=1}^{n+2}\,a_i - \sum_{i=1}^{n+1}\,a_i\right| < \epsilon,\quad
\left| \sum_{i=1}^{n+3}\,a_i - \sum_{i=1}^{n+2}\,a_i\right| < \epsilon,$$
and summing each side of the inequalities gives (after reverting to sequence-notation and employing the triangle inequality),
$$
\left(|a_{n+1}-a_n| + |a_{n+2}-a_{n+1}| + |a_{n+3}-a_{n+2}| + \cdots + |a_{K} - a_{K-1}| \right) \leq \left( \epsilon_{1,2} + \epsilon_{2,3} + \epsilon_{3,4} + \cdots + \epsilon_{K-1,K} \right)
$$
which implies
$$\left( \epsilon_{1,2} + \epsilon_{2,3} + \epsilon_{3,4} + \cdots + \epsilon_{K-1,K} \right)_{\textrm{ by weaker criteria }}   \geq |a_n - a_{n+K}|_{\textrm{ by Cauchy criteria }}$$
If I understand these differences correctly, then my main problem is putting these into a formal mathematical proof. Unless this would qualify?
Thanks much for the help and the site!

REPLY [5 votes]: Your intuition and argument are correct as far as they go, but note that you've only shown that the Cauchy condition is at least as strong, not strictly stronger. You can show "strictly stronger" by finding a counterexample, or by finding a property that all Cauchy sequences have and the weaker formulation doesn't have. A counterexample is probably easier to come by. Think about how this could happen. Can you think of a function $f$ defined for $x>0$ (hence, it is defined for each $n = 1, \; 2, \; 3,\;...$) that approaches $\infty$ as $x \rightarrow \infty$ (hence, $f(n) \rightarrow \infty$ as $n \rightarrow \infty$), but it does so in such a way that its everywhere positive slope approaches $0$ as $x \rightarrow \infty$ (thereby ensuring that $f(n+1) - f(n) \rightarrow 0$)? More specifically, think about how $f(x) = \log x$ or $f(x) = \sqrt x$ could help in light of what I've said.