Find Limit of Function: (x^3-1)/(x-1)^1/2 - 0.7

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How close to 1 does x have to be to ensure that the function (x^3-1)/(x-1)^1/2 is within a distance 0.7 of its limit?

do i find the limit as x goes to 1 then subrtace .7 or what?
 
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No, you are required to find a "delta" so that whenever x is closer to 1 than a distance "delta", the function value is less than "epsilon=0.7" apart from the limit value of the function at x=1.
 
To help you along a bit:
First, get rid of the denominator in the function as follows:
f(x)=\frac{x^{3}-1}{\sqrt{x-1}}=\frac{(x^{2}+x+1)(x-1)}{\sqrt{x-1}}=(x^{2}+x+1)\sqrt{x-1}, x>1

Secondly, rewrite x=1+\delta, \delta>0, which is a permissible operation for any valid choice of x (there will always exist some \delta for which that is true.

Thirdly, rewrite the expression of f(x) in terms of \delta:
f(x)=f(1+\delta)=((1+\delta)^{2}+(1+\delta)+1)\sqrt{(1+\delta)-1}=(\delta^{2}+3\delta+3)\sqrt{\delta}

Are you following thus far?
 
i understand what you were doing before...but what is delta exactly?
 
Since x= 1+\delta, \delta= x- 1, the distance between x and 1- the number you are looking for.
 
Can't we just find the limit, +- 0.7, then solve back for x?
 
Rasine:
I'll do this one for you, so that you can see how we do these problems.
Now, one of the reasons why I substituted 1+\delta at the variable's place, is that we have the trivial relations:

Take any x so that 1\leq{x}<{1}+\delta, and define \delta_{x}=x-1:
\delta_{x}<\delta, \delta_{x}^{2}<\delta^{2},\sqrt{\delta_{x}}<\sqrt{\delta}
Therefore, 0\leq{f(x)}<f(1+\delta)
Furthermore, with 0 being the limit of f at x=1, we have that:
|f(x)-0|<|f(1+\delta)-0|=(\delta^{2}+3\delta+3)\sqrt{\delta}
Thus, if we can assign a value of delta so that (\delta^{2}+3\delta+3)\sqrt{\delta}<0.7, then that inequality holds for any choice of x lying between 1 and 1+\delta, and our proof is finished.

Now, how do we find such a workable delta value.
There many ways of doing this, here's perhaps the simplest one:
If we ASSUME that \delta\leq{1}, then we have:
\delta^{2}+3\delta+3<1^{2}+3*1+3=7
Hence, we have:
(\delta^{2}+3\delta+3)\sqrt{\delta}<7\sqrt{\delta}, \delta<1
Now, can we make 7\sqrt{\delta}\leq{0.7}?
Indeed we can, if we set \delta\leq{0.01}

But, therefore, since 0.01<1, it follows that by choosing \delta=0.01, we have the inequality sequence, for every x 1&lt;{x}&lt;{1+\delta},\delta=0.01:
|f(x)-0|&lt;(\delta^{2}+3\delta+3)\sqrt{\delta}&lt;7\sqrt{\delta}&lt;7*0.1=0.7
which is our desired result.
 
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