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06 November 2023 12:49

Indeterminate forms, L’Hôpital’s Rule

In calculus, indeterminate forms are expressions that, when evaluated, do not give a clear or definite value.
These forms typically arise when trying to evaluate limits and can include expressions of the form 0/0, ∞/∞, 0
*∞, ∞ - ∞, 1^∞, 0^0, and ∞^0, among others.

Case1:

Indeterminate Form

If we want to know how the function

Theorem: - L'Hôpital's Rule Suppose that , that and are differentiable on an open
interval containing , and that on if . Then

assuming that the limit on the right side of this equation exists.

EXAMPLE 1 The following limits involve indeterminate forms, so we apply l'Hôpital's Rule. In
some cases, it must be applied repeatedly.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Still ; differentiate again.

Not limit is found.

(d)

Still

Still

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 Not limit is found.

forms

In more advanced treatments of calculus it is proved that l'Hôpital's Rule applies to the indeterminate
form as well as to . If and as , then

provided the limit on the right exists. In the notation may be either finite or infinite.
Moreover, may be replaced by the one-sided limits or .

EXAMPLE 4 Find the limits of these forms:

(a)

(b)

(c) .

Solution

(a) The numerator and denominator are discontinuous at , so we investigate the one-sided
limits there. To apply l'Hôpital's Rule, we can choose to be any open interval with as an
endpoint.

from the left

The right-hand limit is 1 also, with as the indeterminate form. Therefore, the two-sided
limit is equal to 1 .

(b)

(c)

forms

EXAMPLE 5: Find the limits of these forms:

(a)

(b)

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(b)

Solution

(a)

; Let .

(b)

converted to

l'Hôpital's Rule

EXAMPLE 6 Find the limit of this form:

Solution If , then and

Similarly, if , then and

Neither form reveals what happens in the limit. To find out, we first combine the fractions:

Then we apply l'Hôpital's Rule to the result:

Indeterminate Powers

Limits that lead to the indeterminate forms , and can sometimes be handled by first taking
the logarithm of the function. We use l'Hôpital's Rule to find the limit of the logarithm expression and
then exponentiate the result to find the original function limit.

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 If , then

Here may be either finite or infinite.

EXAMPLE 7 Apply l'Hôpital's Rule to show that .

Solution The limit leads to the indeterminate form . We let and find
. Since

l'Hôpital's Rule now applies to give

Therefore, .

EXAMPLE 8 Find .

Solution The limit leads to the indeterminate form . We let and find .
Since

l'Hôpital's Rule gives

Therefore .

Integration

THE AREA PROBLEM Given a function that is continuous and nonnegative on an interval ,
find the area between the graph of and the interval on the -axis (Figure 4.1.2).

• Divide the interval into equal subintervals, and over each subinterval construct a rectangle that
extends from the -axis to any point on the curve that is above the subinterval; the particular

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 extends from the -axis to any point on the curve that is above the subinterval; the particular
point does not matter-it can be above the center, above an endpoint, or above any other point in the
subinterval. In Figure 4.1.3 it is above the center.
• For each , the total area of the rectangles can be viewed as an approximation to the exact area under
the curve over the interval . Moreover, it is evident intuitively that as increases these
approximations will get better and better and will approach the exact area as a limit (Figure 4.1.4).
That is, if denotes the exact area under the curve and denotes the approximation to using
rectangles, then

We will call this the rectangle method for computing .

To illustrate this idea, we will use the rectangle method to approximate the area under the curve
over the interval (Figure 4.1.5). We will begin by dividing the interval into equal
subintervals, from which it follows that each subinterval has length ; the endpoints of the
subintervals occur at

(Figure 4.1.6). We want to construct a rectangle over each of these subintervals whose height is the
value of the function at some point in the subinterval. To be specific, let us use the right
endpoints, in which case the heights of our rectangles will be

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and since each rectangle has a base of width , the total area of the rectangles will be

For example, if , then the total area of the four approximating rectangles would be

ANTIDERIVATIVES Method for finding area

DEFINITION:

A function is called an antiderivative of a function on a given open interval if for all

in the interval.

THE ANTIDERIVATIVE METHOD FOR FINDING AREAS

Although the rectangle method is appealing intuitively, the limits that result can only be evaluated in
certain cases. For this reason, progress on the area problem remained at a rudimentary level until the
latter part of the seventeenth century when Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz independently
discovered a fundamental relationship between areas and derivatives. Briefly stated, they showed that
if is a nonnegative continuous function on the interval , and if denotes the area under the
graph of over the interval , where is any point in the interval (Figure 4.1.7), then

The following example confirms Formula (2) in some cases where a formula for can be found
using elementary geometry.

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Example 1 For each of the functions , find the area between the graph of and the interval
, and find the derivative of this area function.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Solution (a). From Figure 4.1.8a we see that

is the area of a rectangle of height 2 and base . For this area function,

Solution . From Figure we see that

is the area of an isosceles right triangle with base and height equal to . For this area function,

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Solution (c). Recall that the formula for the area of a trapezoid is , where and
denote the lengths of the parallel sides of the trapezoid, and the altitude denotes the distance
between the parallel sides. From Figure 4.1.8c we see that

is the area of a trapezoid with parallel sides of lengths 1 and and with altitude .
For this area function,

THEOREM : If is any antiderivative of on an open interval, then for any constant the
function is also an antiderivative on that interval. Moreover, each antiderivative of on
the interval can be expressed in the form by choosing the constant appropriately.

Example 6 Solve the initial-value problem

Solution. The solution of the differential equation is

The initial condition implies that if ; substituting these values in (11) yields

Thus, the solution of the initial-value problem is .

Definite integral

Calculates the the area under a curve between specific bounds.

Indefintie integral

Finds a family of functions or antiderivatives without specific bounds.

(a)

THE FUNDAMENTAL THEOREM OF CALCULUS

As in earlier sections, let us begin by assuming that is nonnegative and continuous on an interval
, in which case the area under the graph of over the interval is represented by the
definite integral

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 .

Recall that our discussion of the antiderivative method in Section 4.1 suggested that if is the area
under the graph of from to (Figure 4.6.2), then

•
• The area under the curve from to is the area above the single point , and hence is
zero.
• The area under the curve from to is .
The formula states that is an antiderivative of , which implies that every other
antiderivative of on can be obtained by adding a constant to . Accordingly, let

be any antiderivative of , and consider what happens when we subtract from

THEOREM (The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, Part I) If is continuous on and is any

antiderivative of on , then

Example 1 Evaluate

Solution. The function is an antiderivative of ; thus, from (2)

Example 2 In Example 5 of Section 4.4 we used the definition of area to show that the area under the
graph of over the interval is 18 (square units). We can now solve that problem much
more easily using the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus:

Example 3

(a) Find the area under the curve over the interval (Figure 4.6.4).

(b) Make a conjecture about the value of the integral

and confirm your conjecture using the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus.

Solution (a). Since over the interval , the area under the curve is

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Solution . The given integral can be interpreted as the signed area between the graph of
and the interval . The graph in Figure 4.6.4 suggests that over the interval the portion of
area above the -axis is the same as the portion of area below the -axis,

so we conjecture that the signed area is zero; this implies that the value of the integral is zero. This is
confirmed by the computations

THEOREM (The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, Part 2) If is continuous on an interval, then

has an antiderivative on that interval. In particular, if a is any point in the interval, then the function
defined by

is an antiderivative of ; that is, for each in the interval, or in an alternative notation

Example 10 Find

by applying Part 2 of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, and then confirm the result by
performing the integration and then differentiating.

Solution. The integrand is a continuous function, so from (11)

Alternatively, evaluating the integral and then differentiating yields

so the two methods for differentiating the integral agree.

Example 11 Since

is continuous on any interval that does not contain the origin, it follows from (11) that on the interval
we have

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Unlike the preceding example, there is no way to evaluate the integral in terms of familiar functions,
so Formula (11) provides the only simple method for finding the derivative.

MACLAURIN POLYNOMIALS
PROBLEM: Given a function that can be differentiated times at
, find a polynomial of degree with the property that the value of
and the values of its first derivatives match those of at .

Definition If can be differentiated times at 0 , then we define the Maclaurin

polynomial for to be

Example 2 Find the Maclaurin polynomials , and for .

Solution. Let . Thus,

and

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Therefore,

Example 3 Find the th Maclaurin polynomials for

(a)

(b)

Solution (a). In the Maclaurin polynomials for , only the odd powers of appear
explicitly. To see this, let ; thus,

Since , the pattern will repeat as we evaluate successive

derivatives at 0 . Therefore, the successive Maclaurin polynomials for are

Because of the zero terms, each even-order Maclaurin polynomial [after is the same as
the preceding odd-order Maclaurin polynomial. That is,

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The graphs of , and are shown in Figure 9.7.4.

Solution (b). In the Maclaurin polynomials for , only the even powers of appear
explicitly; the computations are similar to those in part (a). The reader should be able to
show that

In general, the Maclaurin polynomials for are given by

The graphs of , and are shown in Figure 9.7.5.

TAYLOR POLYNOMIALS

9.7.3 DEFINITION If can be differentiated times at , then we define the Taylor

polynomial for fabout to be

Example 4 Find the first four Taylor polynomials for about .

Solution. Let . Thus,

Substituting in (9) with yields

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THE TH REMAINDER

It will be convenient to have a notation for the error in the approximation .

Accordingly, we will let denote the difference between and its th Taylor
polynomial; that is,

This can also be written as

The function is called the remainder for the Taylor series of , and Formula (13) is
called Taylor's formula with remainder.

Finding a bound for gives an indication of the accuracy of the approximation

. The following theorem, which is proved in Appendix D, provides such a bound.

9.7.4 THEOREM (The Remainder Estimation Theorem) If the function can be

differentiated times on an interval containing the number , and if is an upper
bound for on the interval, that is, for all in the interval, then

for all in the interval.

Example 7 Use an th Maclaurin polynomial for to approximate to five decimalplace

accuracy.

Solution. We note first that the exponential function has derivatives of all orders for every
real number . From Example 2, the th Maclaurin polynomial for is

from which we have

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from which we have

Thus, our problem is to determine how many terms to include in a Maclaurin polynomial for
to achieve five decimal-place accuracy; that is, we want to choose so that the absolute
value of the th remainder at satisfies

To determine we use the Remainder Estimation Theorem with ,

and the interval . In this case it follows from (14) that

where is an upper bound on the value of for in the interval .

However, is an increasing function, so its maximum value on the interval occurs at
; that is, on this interval. Thus, we can take in (15) to obtain

Unfortunately, this inequality is not very useful because it involves , which is the very
quantity we are trying to approximate. However, if we accept that , then we can replace
(16) with the following less precise, but more easily applied, inequality:

Thus, we can achieve five decimal-place accuracy by choosing so that

Since and , the smallest value of that meets this criterion is

. Thus, to five decimal-place accuracy

As a check, a calculator's 12-digit representation of is , which agrees

with the preceding approximation when rounded to five decimal places.

A DEFINITION OF AREA

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We now turn to the problem of giving a precise definition of what is meant by the "area
under a curve." Specifically, suppose that the function is continuous and nonnegative on
the interval , and let denote the region bounded below by the -axis, bounded on the
sides by the vertical lines and , and bounded above by the curve (Figure
4.4.2). Using the rectangle method of Section 4.1, we can motivate a definition for the area of
as follows:

• Divide the interval into equal subintervals by inserting equally spaced

points between and , and denote those points by

(Figure 4.4.3). Each of these subintervals has width , which is customarily denoted
by

• Over each subinterval construct a rectangle whose height is the value of at an

arbitrarily selected point in the subinterval. Thus, if

denote the points selected in the subintervals, then the rectangles will have heights
and areas

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(Figure 4.4.4).

• The union of the rectangles forms a region whose area can be regarded as an
approximation to the area of the region ; that is,

(Figure 4.4.5). This can be expressed more compactly in sigma notation as

• Repeat the process using more and more subdivisions, and define the area of to be
the "limit" of the areas of the approximating regions as increases without bound.
That is, we define the area as

In summary, we make the following definition.

4.4.3 DEFINITION (Area Under a Curve) If the function is continuous on and if

for all in , then the area under the curve over the interval is
defined by

Example 4 Use Definition 4.4 .3 with as the right endpoint of each subinterval to find the
area between the graph of and the interval .

Solution. The length of each subinterval is

so it follows from (4) that

Thus,

Part (b) of Theorem 4.4.2

from which it follows that

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4.4.4 THEOREM

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Example 5 Use Definition 4.4.3 with as the midpoint of each subinterval to find the area
under the parabola and over the interval .

Solution. Each subinterval has length

so it follows from (5) that

Thus,

from which it follows that

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5.1.2 AREA FORMULA If and are continuous functions on the interval , and if
for all in , then the area of the region bounded above by , below
by , on the left by the line , and on the right by the line is

Example 1 Find the area of the region bounded above by , bounded below by
, and bounded on the sides by the lines and .

Solution. The region and a cross section are shown in Figure 5.1.4. The cross section extends
from on the bottom to on the top. If the cross section is moved
through the region, then its leftmost position will be and its rightmost position will be
. Thus, from (1)

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Example 2 Find the area of the region that is enclosed between the curves and
.

Solution. A sketch of the region (Figure 5.1.6) shows that the lower boundary is and
the upper boundary is . At the endpoints of the region, the upper and lower
boundaries have the same -coordinates; thus, to find the endpoints we equate

This yields

from which we obtain

Although the -coordinates of the endpoints are not essential to our solution, they may be
obtained from (2) by substituting and in either equation. This yields and
, so the upper and lower boundaries intersect at and .

From (1) with , and , we obtain the area

Example 4 Find the area of the region enclosed by and .

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Solution. To determine the appropriate boundaries of the region, we need to know where the
curves and intersect. In Example 2 we found intersections by equating the
expressions for . Here it is easier to rewrite the latter equation as and equate the
expressions for , namely,

This yields

from which we obtain . Substituting these values in either equation in (3) we

see that the corresponding -values are and , respectively, so the points of
intersection are and (Figure 5.1.10a).

To apply Formula (1), the equations of the boundaries must be written so that is expressed
explicitly as a function of . The upper boundary can be written as (rewrite as
and choose the + for the upper portion of the curve). The lower boundary consists
of two parts:

(Figure 5.1.10b). Because of this change in the formula for the lower boundary, it is necessary
to divide the region into two parts and find the area of each part separately.

From (1) with , and , we obtain

From (1) with , and , we obtain

Thus, the area of the entire region is

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