Jimmy started with θ = π . Playing around with the following double-angle cosine formula
cos ( 2 θ ) = 2 cos 2 ( θ ) − 1
He made the following list of all cosine values in the following descending angle order cos ( π ) cos ( 2 π ) cos ( 4 π ) cos ( 8 π ) cos ( 1 6 π ) cos ( 3 2 π ) ⋮ = − 1 = 0 = 2 2 = 2 2 + 2 = 2 2 + 2 + 2 = 2 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 ⋮ Noticing the increasing number of 's and 2's, he then wrote down n → ∞ lim cos ( 2 n π ) = 2 2 + 2 + 2 + ⋯ = 2 2 = 1 If he were to follow these similar steps from θ = k π , where k > 0 , can he also achieve the following limit to be 1? n → ∞ lim cos ( 2 n ⋅ k π ) = 1
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The cosine function cos(x) is continuous on R (most notably at x = 0) so it follows that: n → ∞ lim c o s ( 2 n ⋅ k π ) = c o s ( n → ∞ lim ( 2 n ⋅ k π ) ) = c o s ( 0 ) = 1