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burge
Feb4-04, 12:49 AM
Stuck here too:

lim as x -> 0 of [cotPxsinx]/2secx
*P = pi

*Thanks for your help

himanshu121
Feb4-04, 01:00 AM
This is equivalent to

\lim_{x\rightarrow 0} = \frac{sinx}{2sin\pi x}

burge
Feb4-04, 06:26 AM
How did you get to that?

himanshu121
Feb4-04, 07:19 AM
cotpix=cospix/sinpix.
so therefore u have
\lim_{x\rightarrow 0} = \frac{sinx}{2sin\pi x}
+ Using these
cosx->1 as x->0

HallsofIvy
Feb5-04, 07:35 AM
In more detail:

cot(\pi x)= \frac{cos(\pi x)}{sin(\pi x)} and
sec(x)= \frac{1}{cos(x)}

so
\frac{cot(\pi x)sin(x)}{sec(x)}= \frac{cos(\pi x)sin(x)}{sin(\pi x)cos(x)}
= \frac{cos(\pi x)}{cos(x)}\frac{sin(x)}{sin(\pi x)}

Since both cos(\pi x) and cos(x) have limit 1 as x-> 0, the limit of \frac{cos(\pi x)}{cos(x)}= 1 and we are left with
limit_{x->0}\frac{sin(x)}{sin(\pi x)}.

You could do that by L'hopital's rule or by considering the first few terms of the Taylor's series for sine.