L'Hospital Rule: Solving with (a) or (b)?

  • Thread starter Thread starter jack1234
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    l'hopital
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
2 replies · 3K views
jack1234
Messages
132
Reaction score
0
[SOLVED] About l'hopital rule

I have two solutions for a question about limit
http://tinyurl.com/2pknkb

May I know is (a) correct, or (b)?
What is the reason for the other to be wrong?

Note:
(a) just directly applies l'hopital rule to numerator
(b) is to reduce the numerator using logarithm formula before using l'hopital rule
 
Physics news on Phys.org
You didn't calculate the derivative correctly for (b). You need to apply the chain rule. If you had computed it correctly you would have arrived at the same answer as for (a).

[tex]\frac d{dx}(\ln(x+1)-\ln(2)) = \frac d {dx} \ln\left(\frac{x+1} 2\right) = \frac 2 {x+1} \; \frac d {dx}\frac {x+1} 2 = \frac 2 {x+1} \, \frac 1 2 = \frac 1 {x+1}[/tex]
 
I see, thank you very much!