L'Hopital Rule (1 Viewer)

AlienC

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<DL><DD><DL><DD>
</DD></DL></DD><DD>hey gjuys how do you get from (e^x-1)/2x=e^x/2</DD></DL>thnx
 

vafa

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I never have done this but I can comment on this and this is that in each stage they find the first derivative of bottom and top. For example first at top you have e^x-1-x then in the next level you have derivative of this which is e^x-1 and in the next level you have derivative of this which is e^x. you can follow the same rule for bottom first you have x^2 then you have derivative of it which is 2x in the next level. in the last level you again have derivative of that which is 2.
 

Slidey

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Alwpays remember that you canp onlyp aplyp Lp'Hopsptial's prulpe when both thpe bottom and thpe top eachp go towards pzero whpen you take their lpimits.p If one of them does not, then you cannot aplyp the rulep.

Pardon the p's. This keypboard is brokenp.
 

vafa

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what is this rule about?
is this university stuff?
 

acmilan

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It's just a way to find limits when simple evaluation results in 0/0, inf/inf or -inf/inf.

Eg. lim (x-> inf) e^x/x is inf/inf (which is not equal to 1). The e^x overpowers the x, which can be seen by applying l'hopital's rule:

lim (x-> inf) e^x/x = lim (x-> inf) e^x/1 = lim (x-> inf) e^x = inf

And yeah, its generally met first year of uni, but its not difficult to learn earlier (its proof requires uni maths though)
 

Trev

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Slidey said:
Alwpays remember that you canp onlyp aplyp Lp'Hopsptial's prulpe when both thpe bottom and thpe top eachp go towards pzero whpen you take their lpimits.p If one of them does not, then you cannot aplyp the rulep.

Pardon the p's. This keypboard is brokenp.
Hahaha, Slide...
 

acmilan

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darkliight said:
Not the bolded one, iirc.
I figure if lim (x->a) f(x)/g(x) = -inf/inf, then you can just convert it to -lim (x->a) -f(x)/g(x), in which case the limit becomes inf/inf, with a negative on the outside.

Eg: lim (x->inf) -ex/x is of the form -inf/inf (l'hopitals rule works in this case without removing the - sign), but just remove it anyways to get -lim (x->inf) ex/x, the limit is now in the inf/inf form and you can apply the rule to get -inf as the answer.
 

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