Limiting Logarithms

Calculus Level 1

lim n log n ( n + 1 ) = ? \large \lim_{n\rightarrow \infty} \log_{n}(n+1) = \, ?

Give your answer to 2 decimal places.


The answer is 1.00.

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3 solutions

Sam Bealing
Apr 4, 2016

You can use the substitution: log x y = ln y ln x \log_{x} y=\frac{\ln{y}}{\ln{x}}

lim n log n ( n + 1 ) = lim n ln ( n + 1 ) ln ( n ) \lim_{n\rightarrow \infty} \log_{n}{(n+1) }=\lim_{n\rightarrow \infty} \frac{\ln (n+1)}{\ln{(n)}}

By L'Hopital's Rule: lim n ln ( n + 1 ) ln ( n ) = lim n 1 n + 1 1 n = lim n n n + 1 = lim n 1 1 n + 1 = 1 \lim_{n\rightarrow \infty} \frac{\ln (n+1)}{\ln{(n)}}=\lim_{n\rightarrow \infty}\frac{\frac{1}{n+1}}{\frac{1}{n}}=\lim_{n\rightarrow \infty} \frac{n}{n+1}=\lim_{n\rightarrow \infty} 1-\frac{1}{n+1}=1

Nice elaboration! +1

As @Harsh Shrivastava pointed out below, you may use the approximation ln ( n + 1 ) ln ( n ) \ln(n+1)\approx \ln(n) for large** n n to simplify the working.

Nihar Mahajan - 5 years, 2 months ago

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Disagree. That idea of approximation is bad / irrelevant / doesn't provide a proper explanation. See my comment for more details.

Calvin Lin Staff - 5 years, 2 months ago

Great work! +1

Sravanth C. - 5 years, 2 months ago

logn (n)=1 ,infinitely +1=infinitely and that is very easy

Patience Patience - 5 years, 1 month ago

For lim x ( log n ( n + 1 ) ) \lim_{x\to \infty}(\log_{n}(n+1)) Use L'Hopital's theorem for lim x a ( f ( x ) g ( x ) ) \lim_{x\to a}\left(\frac{f(x)}{g(x)}\right) , if lim x a ( f ( x ) g ( x ) ) = 0 0 \lim_{x\to a}\left(\frac{f(x)}{g(x)}\right) =\frac{0}{0} or lim x a ( f ( x ) g ( x ) ) = ± \lim_{x\to a}\left(\frac{f(x)}{g(x)}\right) =\pm \frac{\infty}{\infty} then lim x a ( f ( x ) g ( x ) ) = lim x a ( f ( x ) g ( x ) ) \lim_{x\to a}\left(\frac{f(x)}{g(x)}\right) =\lim_{x\to a} \left(\frac{f'(x)}{g'(x)}\right)

For extremely large n, log ( n + 1 ) log ( n ) \log(n+1) \approx \log(n)

Thus answer is unity.

That approximation sign is bad, because it doesn't convey anything useful.

What does it mean to be approximately equal? If we consider the sequence ( 0.1 ) n (0.1)^n , would we say that ( 0.1 ) n ( 0.1 ) n + 1 (0.1)^n \approx (0.1)^{n+1} , esp since they are both approximately 0?

If no, why not?
if yes, can we conclude that the ratio of these terms is 1?

Calvin Lin Staff - 5 years, 2 months ago

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