There's no limit to it

Calculus Level 4

lim x 0 cos 2 ( x ) cos ( x ) e x cos ( x ) + e x x 3 2 x n \large \lim_{x\to0} \frac{ \cos^2 (x) - \cos (x) - e^x \cos(x) + e^x - \frac{x^3}2 }{x^n}

Find the integer value of n n such that the above limit is a non-zero real number.

4 5 3 2 This is impossible to accomplish

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.

1 solution

Tijmen Veltman
Jun 23, 2015

We can use the following Maclaurin expansions:

cos ( x ) = 1 1 2 x 2 + 1 24 x 4 + O ( x 6 ) \cos(x)=1-\frac12x^2+\frac1{24}x^4+\mathcal{O}(x^6)

e x = 1 + x + 1 2 x 2 + 1 6 x 3 + 1 24 x 4 + O ( x 5 ) e^x=1+x+\frac12x^2+\frac16x^3+\frac1{24}x^4+\mathcal{O}(x^5)

where O \mathcal{O} indicates the big O-notation . Plugging these into the limit formula and simplifying gives us:

cos 2 ( x ) cos ( x ) e x cos ( x ) + e x x 3 2 = 1 2 x 4 + O ( x 5 ) \cos^2(x)-\cos(x)-e^x\cos(x)+e^x-\frac{x^3}2 = \frac12x^4+\mathcal{O}(x^5) .

Hence for n < 4 n<4 the limit would be equal to 0 0 , whereas for n = 4 n=4 the limit is equal to 1 2 \frac12 . Therefore the answer is n = 4 n=\boxed{4} .

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...