We see that if a function is differentiable at a point, then it must be continuous at that point.
This theorem is often written as its contrapositive:
If is not continuous at , then is not differentiable at .
Thus from the theorem above, we see that all differentiable functions on are continuous on . Nevertheless there are continuous functions on that are not differentiable on .
So for the function to be continuous, we must have We also must ensure that the value of the derivatives of both pieces of agree at . Write with me
Moreover, by the definition of a tangent line Hence we must have
Ah! So now
so . Thus setting and will give us a differentiable (and hence continuous) piecewise function. We can confirm our results by looking at the graph of :