2

$$\lim_{x\to 0} \frac{a^{\tan x} - a^{\sin x}}{\tan x - \sin x}$$

We weren't supposed to do this using L'Hospital's rule

So in the beginning, I added and subtracted 1 from the numerator the get into a standard limit form

$$\frac{a^x-1}{x}.$$

From then on, I got a string of standard limits but it the end, the answer just doesn't seem to match. All the time I get a $0$ and the answer is $\ln(a)$.

Asaf Karagila
  • 393,674
MrKhonsu
  • 180
  • It's unclear: were you able to get it into the form $\frac{a^x - 1}{x}$ and were unable to solve from there, or were you unable to get it into that form? – Alex Jones May 27 '20 at 01:26
  • 1
    @David: If you're improving the title, why not making it actually descriptive? (And as a side note, it's either L'Hospital or L'Hôpital, but it's never L'hopital.) – Asaf Karagila May 27 '20 at 09:53
  • Fair enough. But it was definitely an improvement! – David G. Stork May 27 '20 at 16:39

4 Answers4

7

We have :\begin{aligned}\lim_{x\to 0}{\frac{a^{\tan{x}}-a^{\sin{x}}}{\tan{x}-\sin{x}}}&=\lim_{x\to 0}{a^{\sin{x}}\frac{a^{\tan{x}-\sin{x}}-1}{\tan{x}-\sin{x}}}\\ &=a^{0}\times \ln{a}\\ &=\ln{a}\end{aligned}

Because $ \lim\limits_{x\to 0}{\frac{a^{\tan{x}-\sin{x}}-1}{\tan{x}-\sin{x}}}=\lim\limits_{y\to 0}{\frac{a^{y}-1}{y}}=\ln{a} $ as you said.

CHAMSI
  • 8,333
1

You are going on a right track

$\begin{align} \lim_{x\to 0}\frac{a^{\tan x}-a^{\sin x}}{\tan x-\sin x} &=\lim_{x\to 0}\frac{\frac{(a^{\tan x}-1)\tan x}{\tan x}-\frac{(a^{\sin x}-1)\sin x}{\sin x}}{\tan x-\sin x}\\ &=\lim_{x\to 0}\ln a\frac{\tan x-\sin x}{\tan x-\sin x}\\ &=\ln a \end{align}$

DanielWainfleet
  • 57,985
SarGe
  • 3,010
  • I don't see how you got the middle line. BTW my edit was to add the "$\lim_{x\to 0}$" to it. – DanielWainfleet May 27 '20 at 02:39
  • 1
    The way you move from second expression to third expression is wrong. You can't replace a part of an expression with its limit (here $\log a$) in general. For more details see this answer. The right approach is given in the answer by user CHAMSI. – Paramanand Singh May 27 '20 at 04:49
1

$$ \frac{a^{\tan (x)} - a^{\sin (x)}}{\tan( x) - \sin (x)}= \frac{e^{\tan (x)\log(a)} - e^{\sin (x)\log(a)}}{\tan (x) - \sin (x)}\sim \frac{\Big[1+{\tan (x)\log(a)}\Big]- \Big[1+{\sin (x)\log(a)}\Big]}{\tan (x) - \sin (x) }$$ Simplify the numerator.

Claude Leibovici
  • 260,315
0

$$\lim_{x\to 0}\frac{a^{\tan x}-a^{\sin x}}{\tan x-\sin x}$$ $$=\lim_{x\to 0}\frac{e^{\tan x\ln a}-e^{\sin x\ln a}}{\tan x-\sin x}$$ $$=\lim_{x\to 0}\frac{\left(1+\frac{\tan x\ln a}{1!}+\frac{(\tan x\ln a)^2}{2!}+\ldots\right)-\left(1+\frac{\sin x\ln a}{1!}+\frac{(\sin x\ln a)^2}{2!}+\ldots\right)}{\tan x-\sin x}$$ $$=\lim_{x\to 0}\frac{\frac{(\tan x-\sin x)\ln a}{1!}+\frac{(\tan^2 x-\sin^2 x)(\ln a)^2}{2!}+\ldots}{\tan x-\sin x}$$ $$=\lim_{x\to 0}\left(\ln a+\frac{(\tan x+\sin x)(\ln a)^2}{2}+\ldots\right)$$ $$=\ln a$$

Harish Chandra Rajpoot
  • 37,450