Evaluate this hardcore limit

Calculus Level 2

Evaluate lim n 0 π cos ( x n ) d x \displaystyle \lim_{n\to \infty} \int_0^\pi \cos(x^n)\ dx .


The answer is 1.

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

3 solutions

There appears to be a limit as n n as a positive integer increases. Unfortunately, the evaluation of the expression that is the result of the integration runs a 32GiB PC running Wolfram Mathematica 12 out of memory somewhere above n greater than one billion. At n equal to 614, portions of the expression underflow (have values too small to represent accurately).

The result of integration with n n as a variable is: cos ( π 2 n ) Γ ( n + 1 n ) π ( E n 1 n ( i π n ) + E n 1 n ( i π n ) ) 2 n \cos \left(\frac{\pi }{2 n}\right) \Gamma \left(\frac{n+1}{n}\right)-\frac{\pi \left(E_{\frac{n-1}{n}}\left(-i \pi ^n\right)+E_{\frac{n-1}{n}}\left(i \pi ^n\right)\right)}{2 n}

Noting the conjecture that the upper limit of the integration is \infty and not π \pi , lim n 0 cos ( x n ) d x lim n cos ( π 2 n ) Γ ( n + 1 n ) 1 \underset{n\to \infty }{\text{lim}}\int_0^{\infty } \cos \left(x^n\right) \, dx \Rightarrow \underset{n\to \infty }{\text{lim}}\cos \left(\frac{\pi }{2 n}\right) \Gamma \left(\frac{n+1}{n}\right) \Rightarrow 1

Yes, that is what I conjectured........

Aaghaz Mahajan - 2 years ago
Chris Lewis
May 25, 2019

I'm not sure if something is missing from the question, but there's just enough there to solve.

Certainly we can't have x n x^n getting arbitrarily large, otherwise the limit wouldn't exist.

There are two ways for this not to happen: n n can be negative, in which case x n 0 x^n \to 0 , and the limit is cos 0 = 1 \cos0=1 .

The other way is if n = 0 n=0 , in which case x n 1 x^n \to 1 , and the cosine in the limit is irrational. Since the only option for an answer is an integer, it must be 1 \boxed1 .

Maybe the intended integral was 0 cos ( x n ) d x \displaystyle \int_0^{\infty}\cos\left(x^n\right)dx

Aaghaz Mahajan - 2 years ago
Chew-Seong Cheong
May 25, 2019

The limit only exists and equal to 1 \boxed 1 when n = 0 n=0 .

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...