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    Boas1986.-Counterexamples To L'Hôpital's Rule

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    alphanco alphanco
    This document discusses counterexamples to L'Hopital's rule for evaluating limits. Specifically, it provides an example where L'Hopital's rule appears it should apply but actually yields an incorrect result. The key point is that L'Hopital's rule requires that the derivative in the denominator not change sign infinitely often near the point being evaluated, but the example provided violates this condition. It demonstrates how cancelling common factors between the numerator and denominator derivatives can result in an invalid application of the rule. The example aims to emphasize the strict conditions under which L'Hopital's rule is valid.

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    Boas1986.-Counterexamples To L'Hôpital's Rule

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    alphanco alphanco
    143 views3 pages
    This document discusses counterexamples to L'Hopital's rule for evaluating limits. Specifically, it provides an example where L'Hopital's rule appears it should apply but actually yields an incorrect result. The key point is that L'Hopital's rule requires that the derivative in the denominator not change sign infinitely often near the point being evaluated, but the example provided violates this condition. It demonstrates how cancelling common factors between the numerator and denominator derivatives can result in an invalid application of the rule. The example aims to emphasize the strict conditions under which L'Hopital's rule is valid.

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    Counterexamples to L'Hôpital's Rule

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    Boas1986.-Counterexamples to L'Hôpital's Rule

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    This document discusses counterexamples to L'Hopital's rule for evaluating limits. Specifically, it provides an example where L'Hopital's rule appears it should apply but actually yields an incorrect result. The key point is that L'Hopital's rule requires that the derivative in the denominator not change sign infinitely often near the point being evaluated, but the example provided violates this condition. It demonstrates how cancelling common factors between the numerator and denominator derivatives can result in an invalid application of the rule. The example aims to emphasize the strict conditions under which L'Hopital's rule is valid.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    143 views3 pages

    Boas1986.-Counterexamples To L'Hôpital's Rule

    Uploaded by

    alphanco alphanco
    This document discusses counterexamples to L'Hopital's rule for evaluating limits. Specifically, it provides an example where L'Hopital's rule appears it should apply but actually yields an incorrect result. The key point is that L'Hopital's rule requires that the derivative in the denominator not change sign infinitely often near the point being evaluated, but the example provided violates this condition. It demonstrates how cancelling common factors between the numerator and denominator derivatives can result in an invalid application of the rule. The example aims to emphasize the strict conditions under which L'Hopital's rule is valid.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 3

    The American Mathematical Monthly

    ISSN: 0002-9890 (Print) 1930-0972 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uamm20

    Counterexamples to L'hôpital's Rule

    R. P. Boas

    To cite this article: R. P. Boas (1986) Counterexamples to L'hôpital's Rule, The American
    Mathematical Monthly, 93:8, 644-645, DOI: 10.1080/00029890.1986.11971912

    To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00029890.1986.11971912

    Published online: 02 Feb 2018.

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    https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=uamm20
    644 R.P.BOAS [October

    6. L. Mirsky, An Introduction to Linear Algebra, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1955.


    7. A. Oppenheim, Inequalities connected with definite Hermitian forms, J. London Math. Soc., 5 (1930)
    114-119.
    8. I. Schur, Bemerkungen Zur Theorie der beschrankten Bilinearformen mit unendlich vielen Veranderlichen, J.
    Reine Math., 140 (1911) 1-28.

    THE TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS


    EDITED BY MARY R. WARDROP AND ROBERT F. WARDROP
    For instructions about submitting material for publication in this department see the inside front cover.

    COUNTEREXAMPLES TO L'HOPITAL'S RULE

    R. P. BOAS
    Department of Mathematics. Northwestern Universitr. Evanston, lL 60201

    I. Introduction. I am not, of course, claiming that L'Hopital's rule is wrong, merely that unless
    it is both stated and used very carefully it is capable of yielding spurious results. This is not a new
    observation, but it is often overlooked.
    For definiteness, let us consider the version of the rule that says that if f and g are
    differentiable in an interval (a, b), if
    lim f(x) = lim g(x) = oo,
    x--+b- x--+h-

    and if g'(x) * 0 in some interval (c, b), then


    lim f'(x)lg'(x) = L
    x--+h-

    implies that
    lim f(x)lg(x) = L.
    x--+h-

    If lim f'(x)lg'(x) does not exist, we are not entitled to draw any conclusion about
    lim/( x )Ig( x ). Strictly speaking, if g' has zeros in every left-hand neighborhood of b, then f' I g'
    is not defined on (a, b), and we ought to say firmly that lim f' I g' does not exist. There is,
    however, the insidious possibility that f' and g' contain a common factor: f'(x) =
    s(x)l/l(x), g'(x) = s(x)w(x), where s does not approach a limit and lim 1/i(x)lw(x) exists. It is
    then quite natural to cancel the factor s(x). This is just what we must not do in the present
    situation: it is quite possible that lim 1/i(x)lw(x) exists but limf(x)lg(x) does not.
    This claim calls for an example. A number of textbooks give one, but it is (as far as I know)
    always the same example. The aim of this note is both to emphasize the necessity of the condition
    *
    g'(x) 0 and to provide a systematic method of constructing counterexamples when this
    condition is violated. I consider the case when b = + oo, since the formulas are simpler than
    when b is finite.
    2. A construction. Take a periodic function .\ (not a constant) with a bounded derivative, for
    example .\(x) = sin x. Let
    2
    f(x) = [P'(t)} dt.
    0

    It is clear that f(x)--+ + oo as x--+ + oo. Now choose a function cp such that cp(.\(x)) is
    bounded and both cp(.\(x)) and cp'(.\(x)) are bounded away from 0. There are many such
    1986] THE TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS 645

    functions <p; for example,


    2
    <p(x) = e' or (x + c) or 1/(c + x),
    provided IA(x)l < c and IA'(x)l < c. Take g(x) to be /(x)<p(.\(x)). Since inf <p(A(x)) > 0, we
    have g(x) --+ oo as x--> oo.
    Now try to apply L'Hopital's rule to f(x)jg(x). We have to consider f'(x)jg'(x), where
    f'( X) = {.\'(X)} 2,
    2
    g'(x) = {.\'(x)} <p(.\(x)) + /(x)<p'(.\(x)).\'(x).
    Here g'(x) = 0 whenever .\'(x) = 0, i.e., g' has zeros in every neighborhood of oo, and
    consequently we are not entitled to apply L'Hopital's rule at all. However, this conclusion seems
    rather pedantic; let us go ahead anyway. If we cancel the factor .\'(x), we obtain
    /'(X) .\'(X)
    --=
    g'(x) .\'(x)<p(.\(x)) + /(x)<p'(.\(x)) ·
    Now .\'(x) is bounded (by hypothesis), .\'(x)<p(.\(x)) is bounded, <p'(.\(x)) is bounded away
    from 0, but j(x)--> oo, so j'(x)jg'(x)--> 0. Yet f(x)jg(x) = 1/<p(A(x)) does not approach
    zero, since <p(A(x)) is bounded!
    3. Discussion. What went wrong? If you will study any proof of L'Hopital's rule, you will find
    a place where it used (or should have used) the assumption that g'(x) did not change sign
    infinitely often in a neighborhood of oo. Our example shows that, at least sometimes, L'Hopital's
    rule actually fails when this hypothesis is not satisfied.
    The phenomenon just described was discovered more than a century ago by 0. Stolz [1], [2].
    His example was .\(x) = sin x, <p(x) =ex; it has been repeated in all the modern discussions
    that I have seen. It was wondering whether there are any other examples that led to this note.
    One can verify that it is the changes of sign of .\'( x) that cause the trouble, not the mere
    presence of zeros of .\'. In other words, if .\'(x) ~ 0, the cancellation process still leads to a
    correct result, as Stolz pointed out. However, it seems wildly improbable that an example of
    either kind will occur in practice, especially for limits at a finite point. Differentiable functions
    with infinitely many changes of sign in a finite interval are rarely encountered outside notes like
    this one; all the less, functions with infinitely many double zeros.
    4. History. Guillaume Fran9ois Antoine de Lhospital, Marquis de Sainte-Mesme (1651-1704)
    published (anonymously) in 1691 the world's first textbook on calculus, based on John Bernoulli's
    lecture notes. He seems to have written his name as above, but it is more familiar as L'Hospital
    (old French spelling) or L'Hopital (modern French); I prefer the latter, since it stops students
    from pronouncing the s (which Larousse's dictionary says is not to be pronounced).

    References
    1. 0. Stolz, Ueber die Grenzwerthe der Quotienten, Math. Ann., 15 (1879) 556-559.
    2. _ _ , Grundziige der Differential- und Integralrechnung, vol. 1, Teubner, Leipzig, 1893, pp. 72-84.

    CONVOLUTIONS OF CAUCHY DISTRIBUTIONS

    COLIN R. BLYTH
    Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Queen's Universi~r. Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6

    Recently in this MONTHLY Dwass [1] and Nelson [3] have discussed finding the distribution of
    a sum of two independent Cauchy random variables using the convolution formula with partial

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