TITLE: Why are norms continuous?
QUESTION [28 upvotes]: Describe why norms are continuous function by mathematical symbols.

REPLY [35 votes]: A function $f$ from a metric space to a metric space is continuous if for all $x$ in the domain, for all $\varepsilon>0$, the exists $\delta>0$ such that for all points $y$ in the domain, if the distance from $x$ to $y$ is less than $\delta$, then the distance from $f(x)$ to $f(y)$ is less than $\varepsilon$.
If $f$ is a norm, then it maps a vector space into $\mathbb R$, and the distance from $x$ to $y$ is $f(x-y)$.
In this case it suffices to take $\delta=\varepsilon$, for the following reason.  Suppose the distance from $x$ to $y$ is less than $\delta=\varepsilon$.  Then $f(x-y)=f(y-x)<\varepsilon$ (where the equality follows from the definition of "norm").  Now recall that norms satisfy a triangle inequality:
$$
f(x) \le f(y) + f(x-y)
$$
$$
f(y) \le f(x) + f(y-x)
$$
So
$$
f(y)-f(x) \le f(y-x)<\varepsilon\text{ and }f(x)-f(y) \le f(x-y)<\varepsilon,
$$
so
$$
|f(x)-f(y)|<\varepsilon,
$$
i.e.
$$
\Big(\text{distance from $f(x)$ to $f(y)$}\Big) <\varepsilon.
$$