- Topic
- L’Hôpital’s rule
- Difficulty
- Standard
- Suggested time
- 4 min
- Marks
- 2
L’Hôpital’s rule practice question 9
Evaluate the limit.
What do and each tend to as ? Check the form again before every application, not only the first.
After one application the form is still : . Apply the rule again, or recognise .
A number, as a fraction or a decimal.
Theory UBC Math 100 §6CLP-1 §3.7Key results
Worked solution
Strategy
Two applications, checking the form each time. The second application is the step most often skipped.
Working
First application.
Still 0/0, so apply once more; now the form is 9/2.
Answer
The answer is nine halves.
Check
At x = 0.01 the quotient is about 4.4997, just under 9/2.
Where this goes wrong
Stopping after one application, while 3sin(3x)/(2x) is still 0/0, or applying the rule once too often: 9cos(3x)/2 is not indeterminate, and differentiating its top and bottom again gives −27sin(3x)/0, which means nothing. Check the form before each application.
Leans on
The derivative of cos, from Exponential and trigonometric functions
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