Inspired by Yashasvi Baweja

Calculus Level 3

What is

lim x x x + 1 lim x x x + 1 ? \lim_{x \rightarrow \infty} \left\lfloor \frac{x}{x+1}\right \rfloor -\left\lfloor \lim_{x \rightarrow \infty} \frac{ x}{x+1} \right\rfloor ?


Inspiration

Limits do not commute

0 1 -1 \infty - \infty

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2 solutions

Discussions for this problem are now closed

Jake Lai
Jan 31, 2015

It is not hard to see that the second limit

lim x x x + 1 = 1 = 1 \left\lfloor \lim_{x \rightarrow \infty} \frac{x}{x+1} \right\rfloor = \lfloor 1 \rfloor = 1

The tricky part is the first limit. Note that x x + 1 < 1 \frac{x}{x+1} < 1 for all x ( 1 , ) x \in (-1, \infty) (duh) and hence x x + 1 = 0 \left\lfloor \frac{x}{x+1}\right\rfloor = 0 in that domain. This implies that

lim x x x + 1 = 0 \lim_{x \rightarrow \infty} \left\lfloor \frac{x}{x+1} \right\rfloor = 0

Hence,

lim x x x + 1 lim x x x + 1 = 0 1 = 1 \lim_{x \rightarrow \infty} \left\lfloor \frac{x}{x+1} \right\rfloor-\left\lfloor \lim_{x \rightarrow \infty} \frac{x}{x+1} \right\rfloor = 0-1 = \boxed{-1}

The "trick" is rather that you cannot interchange operations without justifying them. In a sense, f ( g ( x ) ) g ( f ( x ) ) f( g(x) ) \neq g ( f(x) ) .

How is the first part the "trick" part? I would have thought that part was more obvious. The limit of 0's is clearly 0. The limit of x x + 1 \frac{x}{x+1} is slightly harder. LOL

Calvin Lin Staff - 6 years, 4 months ago

Hahaha, I suppose, so; but shouldn't it be obvious that lim x x + 1 = lim x + 1 x + 1 1 x + 1 = 1 \lim \frac{x}{x+1} = \lim \frac{x+1}{x+1}-\frac{1}{x+1} = 1 ? :P Anyhow, nice little problem.

Jake Lai - 6 years, 4 months ago
Radinoiu Damian
Feb 2, 2015

This is simple because the floor function is not continuous on any interval, so lim x f ( x ) f ( lim x x ) \lim_{x \to \infty} f(x) \neq f(\lim_{x \to \infty} x) . Therefore, you need to solve this in the order the problem is given.

Good observation that continuity is required in order to "move the limit in"!

Calvin Lin Staff - 6 years, 4 months ago

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