L’Hospital’s Rule And MacLaurin

Series

L’Hospital’s Rule
Limits revisited (Basics)
We say that the limit of f(x) is L as x approaches a and write this as
limx→a f(x) = L
provided we can make f(x) as close to L as we want for all x sufficiently close to a,
from both sides, without actually letting x be a.

Look at the following example:

x2 +4x−12
limx→2 x2 −2x
Let’s think a little bit more about what’s going on here. Let’s graph the function from the
example. The graph of the function in the range of x’s that were interested in is shown
below.

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 First, notice that there is a rather large open dot at x = 2. This is there to remind us that
the function (and hence the graph) doesn’t exist at x = 2.

As we were plugging in values of x into the function we are in effect moving along the
graph in towards the point as x = 2. This is shown in the graph by the two arrows on the
graph that are moving in towards the point.

When we are computing limits the question that we are really asking is what y value is
our graph approaching as we move in towards x = a on our graph. We are NOT asking
what y value the graph takes at the point in question. In other words, we are asking what
the graph is doing around the point x = a. In our case we can see that as x moves in
towards 2 (from both sides) the function is approaching y = 4 even though the function
itself doesn’t even exist at x = 2. Therefore, we can say that the limit is in fact 4.

So, what have we learned about limits? Limits are asking what the function is
doing around x = a and are not concerned with what the function is actually doing at
x = a. This is a good thing as many of the functions that we’ll be looking at won’t even
exist at x = a as we saw in our last example.

Let’s summarise what we (hopefully) learned in this section. The Limits do not care what
the function is actually doing at the point in question.They only are concerned with what
is happening around the point.

Indeterminate form and L’Hospital’s Rule

Sometimes when we try to evaluate limits of a function at a point or infinity , we get a
proper number as our answers and sometimes we get something absurd. The follow forms

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 are some of the forms of indeterminate form
±∞
±∞
OR 00

For these types of limits, we will be using L’Hospitals rule which states:

IF:
f (x) 0 f (x) ±∞
limx→a g(x)
= 0
OR limx→a g(x)
= ±∞

where a can be any real number, infinity or negative infinity.

Then,
f (x) f ′ (x)
limx→a g(x)
= limx→a g ′ (x)

And if the derivative of the numerator and denominator still gives you indeterminate
form, then you can continue differentiation the numerator and denominator ill you get a
mathematically sound answer when you input x as a

PLEASE NOTE: the above formula is NOT quotient rule. It is the derivative of the
numerator and denominator independently.

Sometimes, you don’t exactly get ±∞

±∞
OR 00 but another form of indeterminate term
like these:

(0)(±∞) 1∞ 00 ∞0 ∞−∞
In this types of questions, you must use mathematics to make it into the ±∞
±∞
OR 00
before using L’Hospital’s rule.

Indeterminate form of type (0)(±∞) we approach it by taking one of the terms in the
denominator:

For example if we have to evaluate the following:

limx→−∞ xex
So, it’s in the form (∞)(0)(∞)(0). This means that we’ll need to write it as a quotient.
Moving the x to the denominator would work.
ex
limx→−∞ xex = limx→−∞ 1/x

Writing the product in this way gives us a product that has the form 0/0 in the limit. So,
let’s use L’Hospital’s Rule on the quotient.
ex ex ex
limx→−∞ xex = limx→−∞ 1/x
= limx→−∞ −1/x2
= limx→−∞ 2/x3
=
ex
limx→−∞ −6/x 4 = ⋯

L’Hospital’s Rule And MacLaurin Series 3

 Hummmm…. This doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere. With each application of
L’Hospital’s Rule we just end up with another 0/0 indeterminate form and in fact the
derivatives seem to be getting worse and worse. Also note that if we simplified the
quotient back into a product we would just end up with either (∞)(0)(∞)(0) or (−∞)(0)
(−∞)(0) and so that won’t do us any good.

This does not mean however that the limit can’t be done. It just means that we moved the
wrong function to the denominator. Let’s move the exponential function instead.

x x
limx→−∞ xex = limx→−∞ 1/ex
= limx→−∞ e−x

Note we used the fact:

1
ex
= e−x and we know that as x goes to negative infinity, e−x goes to Infinity
(imagine the graph)
This will help us when it comes time to take some derivatives. The quotient is now an
indeterminate form of −∞/∞ and using L’Hospital’s Rule gives,
x 1
limx→−∞ xex = limx→−∞ e−x
= limx→−∞ −e−x
=0

So it is important which term to bring to the denominator to get the standard form of
indeterminate form.

Another type of limit solving:

1
limx→∞ x x
Evaluating the above type would need to bring the Power down.
We’re actually going to spend most of this problem on a different limit. Let’s first define
the following.
1
y = xx
Now, if we take the natural log of both sides we get,

ln(y) = ln (x x ) =
1
1 ln x
x
ln x = x

This limit was just a L’Hospital’s Rule problem and we know how to do those. So, what
did this have to do with our limit? Well first notice that,

eln(y) = y
and so our limit could be written as,
1
limx→∞ x x = limx→∞ y = limx→∞ eln(y)

L’Hospital’s Rule And MacLaurin Series 4

 We can now use the limit above to finish this problem.
1
limx→∞ x x = limx→∞ y = limx→∞ eln(y) = elim x→∞ ln(y) = e0 = 1

Textbook Questions

Oxford Textbook

L’Hospital’s Rule And MacLaurin Series 5

 Haese Textbook

MacLaurin Series
A Maclaurin series is a power series that allows one to calculate an approximation of a
function f(x) for input values close to zero, given that one knows the values of the
successive derivatives of the function at zero. In many practical applications, it is
equivalent to the function it represents.

An example where the Maclaurin series is useful is the sine function. The definition of
the sine function does not allow for an easy method of computing output values for the
function at arbitrary input values. On the other hand, it is easy to calculate the values
of sin(x) and all of its derivatives when x=0. The Maclaurin series allows one to use these
derivative values at zero to calculate precise approximations of sin(x) for inputs close to
but not equal to zero. The Maclaurin series is used to create a polynomial that matches
the values of sin(x) and a chosen number of its successive derivatives when x=0. The
resulting polynomial matches the sine curve closely.

In Short, Maclaurin Polynomial is used to approximate ANY FUNCTIONS, no matter

how complicated, into a polynomial. This approximation only works for x values “close
to 0”. the further away it is from 0, the less accurate the approximation gets.

L’Hospital’s Rule And MacLaurin Series 6

 The following image is a way to explain how Mclaurin works

You can see above, the red curve is the sin (x) function. all the other coloured lines are
maclaurin approximation of different orders. You can see that at 0, they will all pass
through the same point but as we go away from x=0, the approximation polynomials of
higher orders are more accurate.

Another visual for exponential function approximation can be see in this video:

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/147bd855-5745-41
e3-ad41-f6d57b85618c/Mclaurin_visual.mp4

Maclaurin Approximation formula:

If f(x) has derivatives at x = 0, then P (x), the Maclaurin polynomial of degree n for
f(x) centred at x = 0, is the unique polynomial of degree n which satisfies the
following conditions:

f(0) = P (0)
f (n) (0) = P (n) (0)
f ′ (0) f ′′ (0) f ′′′ (0) f (4) (0) f (5) (0)
a1 = 1!
; a2 = 2!
; a3 = 3!
; a4 = 4!
; a5 = 5!
f ′ (0) f ′′ (0) 2 f (n) (0) n n f (k) (0) k
P (x) = f(0) + 1! x + 2! x +…+ n! x = ∑k=0 k! x
To summarise:

Example:

L’Hospital’s Rule And MacLaurin Series 7

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 In the IB data booklet, standard Maclaurin polynomials are given:

So any variation of the above form is needed to be found, for example sin(x2 ), you
need to replace the x’s in sin(x) approximation to x2 .

Textbook Questions:

L’Hospital’s Rule And MacLaurin Series 9

 Oxford Textbook

Answers for the textbook questions above

for the Oxford textbook

L’Hospital’s Rule And MacLaurin Series 10

L’Hospital’s Rule And MacLaurin Series 11
 Haese Textbook

L’Hospital’s Rule And MacLaurin Series 12

 Oxford textbook MS

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