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Raising a new Generation of Leaders

MAT 121: LIMITS OF FUNCTIONS

IMAGA O. F.
INTRODUCTION
Find the value of the function

( x 2  1)
f ( x) 
at x  1.
x 1
At x  1 , the value of the function is 0 0 , which is indeterminate.
Suppose we decide to approach it closer and closer

x 0.5 0.9 0.99 0.999 0.9999 0.99999 …

f(x) 1.50000 1.90000 1.99000 1.99900 1.99990 1.99999 …
Now we see that as x gets closer to 1, f(x) gets close to 2.
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Definition of a Limit

lim f ( x)  L
x a

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 Estimating a Limit Numerically
Use a table to estimate the following limits numerically.
1) lim(3x  2)
x 2

2 x2  5x  2
2) lim
x2 x2

x 1
3) lim
x1 x  1

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 Computation of Limits
Basic limits
Let b and c real numbers and let n be a positive integer
1. lim b  b e.g. lim
x 25
3  3 , lim3  3 .
x c x 

2. lim x  c e.g. lim x  0 , lim

x 2
x  2.
x c x 0

3. lim x 
n
c e.g.n
lim
x 5
x 2
 5 2
 25.
x c

4. lim
n
x  c n
for n even and c>0 e.g. lim
x 9
x  93
x c

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Properties of Limits
Let b and c be real numbers, let n be a positive integer, and
let f and g be functions with the following limits
lim
x c
f(x)  L and limx c
g( x )  K
1. Scalar multiple: lim[ bf ( x )]  bL
x c
2. Sum or difference: lim[
x c
f ( x )  g ( x )]  L  K
3. Product: lim[ f ( x )g ( x )]  LK
x c

4. Quotient: f(x) L
lim 
x c
g( x ) K
lim[ f ( x )]  L
n n

5. Power: x c

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 f(x) x c
lim
x c
f ( x )  f ( c )

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 x2  x 6 lim sin x
lim x 
x 1
x 3

lim ( x cos x ) lim

x 3
( x  4)2

x 

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 2
x  6x  9 2x  8 2
x  3 x 10
lim lim lim
x 3
x 3 x 4
x  x 12
2 x 5
x 10 x  25
2

x 1
lim
x 1
x  x  x 1
3 2

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 4 1 4 1

x  1 1 x 1
lim lim
x 0
x
x 1
x 1

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 One-Sided Limits
If the values of f(x) can be made close as we like to L by
taking values of x sufficiently close to a (but greater than a),
then we write
lim f ( x)  L
x a 

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and if the values of f(x) can be made close as we like to L by
taking values of x sufficiently close to a (but less than a), then
we write
lim f ( x)  L
x a 

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 2x
f(x) 
x

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Existence of a Limit

lim f ( x)  L
x c

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Some Important Limits
sin x
1. lim 1
x 0 x
sin 2 x tan x sec2 x
Evaluate lim lim
x 0 5x x 0 3x

lim
1  cos x  cos2 x 
2
x 0 x

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 ln( x  1)
2. lim 1
x 0 x

lim(1
Evaluate x 0  x )1x

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