Proving The Existence of Limits Examples 2
We will now look at some more examples of proving the existence of limits using the definition of a limit, that is $\lim_{x \to a} f(x) = L$ says that $\forall \epsilon > 0 \: \exists \delta > 0 \: \mathrm{s.t.} \: \forall x : 0 < \mid x - a \mid < \delta, \mid f(x) - L \mid < \epsilon$. More examples can be found on the following pages:
- Proving The Existence of Limits Examples 1
- Proving The Existence of Limits Examples 2
- Proving The Existence of Limits Examples 3
- Proving The Existence of Limits Examples 4
- Proving The Existence of Limits Examples 5
Example 1
Prove that $\lim_{x \to a} x = a$.
Let $\epsilon > 0$ be given and find $\delta > 0$ such that if $0 < \mid x - a \mid < \delta$ then $\mid x - a \mid < \epsilon$.
Clearly if we choose $\delta = \epsilon$, then both inequalities hold always, so $\lim_{x \to a} x = a$.
Example 2
Prove that $\lim_{x \to 0} x^2 = 0$.
Let $\epsilon > 0$ be given and find $\delta > 0$ such that if $0 < \mid x - 0 \mid < \delta$ then $\mid x^2 - 0 \mid < \epsilon$.
We will start with the following inequality:
(1)So let $\delta = \sqrt{\epsilon}$. If $0 < \mid x < \delta$, then:
(2)Therefore $\lim_{x \to 0} x^2 = 0$.
Example 3
Prove that $\lim_{x \to 6} x^2 - 6 = 30$.
Let $\epsilon > 0$ be given. We need to find $\delta > 0$ such that if $0 < \mid x - 6 \mid < \delta$ then $\mid (x^2 - 6) - 30 \mid < \epsilon$.
We start with the rightmost inequality to try to derive an appropriate delta, $\mid (x^2 - 6) - 30 \mid = \mid x^2 - 36 \mid < \epsilon$.
(3)We need to find somewhat of an "upper bound" for $\mid x + 6$. Assume that $\delta ≤ 1$ so that $0 < \mid x - 6 \mid < \delta ≤ 1$. Therefore $\mid x - 6 \mid < 1 \implies -1 < x - 6 < 1 \implies 11 < \mid x + 6 \mid < 13$. Therefore we have an upper bound of 13 which is illustrated below:
Therefore,
(4)Now we choose $\delta = \mathrm{min} \{1, \frac{\epsilon}{13} \}$ since we need to show that FOR ALL $\epsilon > 0$ the definition of a limit holds. We note that the definition holds for $\delta ≤ 1$, so it will also hold for any values less than 1 such as $\frac{\epsilon}{13}$. Including this ensures all $\epsilon$ are covered, including large $\epsilon > 13$.
So if $\delta = \mathrm{min} \{ 1, \frac{\epsilon}{13} \}$. First consider the case where $\epsilon < 13$ so then $\delta = \frac{\epsilon}{13}$.
(5)But since $0 < \mid x - 6 \mid < \delta = \frac{\epsilon}{13}$:
(6)Now consider the case where $\delta = 1$. We note that $\frac{\epsilon}{13} > 1$ since we chose $\delta$ to be the minimum of those two values. Therefore
(7)