# Limits and prefered methods

1. Jul 10, 2008

### Ignea_unda

Having read many of the posts on limits over the past year or so (and having been told by a few of the posters) I have come to see that L'Hopital's rule is not a favored method of professors and grad students. Why is this and/or what would I be better spending my time perfecting (for I'm a big fan of L'Hopital's as of now)?

2. Jul 10, 2008

### HallsofIvy

Staff Emeritus
L'Hopital's is quite often "overkill". It works but it is, in my opinion, better to understand how to take the limit than just turn the crank of a powerful machine.

3. Jul 11, 2008

### Take_it_Easy

In my opinion...

The De L'Hopital method is demontrasted to work only under certain Hypothesys that are often hard (or boring) to check.
So, even if it lead to the right result, to be mathematically sure that you could legittimately apply it is a longer procedure than using an alternative method.

I think using Taylor approssimation of a functon to a polinomial is a more precise and worth method and in some way we can consider the De L'Hopital method as a brief and imprecise way of applying the Taylor series to solve indeterminateness in claclulating the limits.