Something Being True in the Limit as Something Else Goes to Zero

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In general, my question is: what do we mean when we say that a mathematical statement is true only in the limit as $x$ goes to $0$?

For example, if the velocity $v$ of a particle is a function of time $t$, then the particle has different velocities at different instants of time. But, we say that $\Delta s=v\Delta t$, where is $\Delta s$ is the distance traveled, is true only if the velocity is not changing during that time interval, and this condition is only true in the limit as $\Delta t$ goes to zero.

How can the condition that the velocity is not changing in the interval $\Delta t$ be true when the velocity is different at different instants of time? Since I am not able to understand how the velocity can be constant (maybe it is approximately constant) for an interval $\Delta t$ as it goes to zero, therefore I think I don't really understand generally what we mean when we say that something is true only in the limit as something else goes to zero.

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This phrasing is not completely rigorous. In general when someone says that $f(x)=g(x)$ in the limit $x\to 0$, they mean something like $$ \lim_{x\to 0}\frac{f(x)}{g(x)}=1 \qquad\text{or}\qquad \lim_{x\to 0}(f(x)-g(x))=0 $$ but these conditions are different, and it is possible for two functions $f$ and $g$ to satisfy one of them but not the other (or vice versa).

In general the meaning is that $f(x)$ and $g(x)$ may not be exactly equal, but they can be made to be as "close to each other" (in some appropriate sense) as you want to by selecting $x$ sufficiently small.


Judging from your choice of example, I think what you need might be a good introductory calculus textbook ...