Functions do not necessarily approach a finite value at every point.

In other wo rds, its possible for a limit not to exist. The next three examples illustrate ways in which this can happen. Example 3 A Limit That Fails to Exist (A Function with a Jump) The Heaviside function H is defined by [This function is named after the electrical engineer Oliver Heaviside (18501925) and can be used to describe an electric current that is switched on at time t 0. ] Its graph is shown in Figure 6. Notice the jump in the graph at x 0. As t approaches 0 from the left, approaches 0. As t approaches 0 from the right, approaches 1. There is no single number that approaches as t approaches 0. Therefore, does not exist.