limits (1 Viewer)

[Grey Council]

can someone explain what limits are? what are they used for?

 

[Giant Lobster]

limits are just there so that no math 'rules' are broken when ur doing things involving infinite or division by 0.

like, u cant say (x-2)(x-3)/(x-2) = -1 when x = 2 cos it doesnt make sense. but with limits u say as x approaches 2, the limiting value of the expression approaches -1. (but it never gets there)

quite a trivial example, just to illustrate that limits are just to preserve "sense" in math
i think of math as a programming language with strict rules that need to be abided by.

 

[Xayma]

The way you do it with infinite is you divide by the highest power of x first.

ie x⁴-1/x⁴ as x---> infinity
you get (x⁴/x⁴)+(-1/x⁴)/(x⁴/x⁴) ie 1-(1/x⁴)/1 so as x---> infinity you get 1/1 instead of infinite over infinite.

Limits can be used to find out things as the x or y value gets very large or small (where x or y may be velocity or something)

 

[victorling]

limits give you the idea of how the graph( if doing curve sketching) tends to behave when x approaches positive and negative maximum

Asymptotes are derived from the limit u found

 

[Grey Council]

mm, thanks.

Is that all there is to it?

 

[...]

this is the summary of limits..


see if its useful cos its not written for hsc

http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~wchen/lnfymfolder/fym05-lf.pdf

 

[Grey Council]

ta, i'll try to make sense of it.

 

[KeypadSDM]

Goddamn. I'm only just kinda getting it.

I've got to get back on track.

 

[Numero Uno]

Originally posted by ...
this is the summary of limits..


see if its useful cos its not written for hsc

http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~wchen/lnfymfolder/fym05-lf.pdf

nice site

 

[...]

Originally posted by Numero Uno
nice site

its the MQ's first yr maths (not discrete or anything, just plain harder 3u stuff with complex number involve)


if u want more i'll see bout posting other stuff

 

[victorling]

Originally posted by ...
this is the summary of limits..


see if its useful cos its not written for hsc

http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~wchen/lnfymfolder/fym05-lf.pdf

this site is alright