What are the rules being used to compute $\lim\limits_{x\rightarrow \frac{\pi}{2}} (1-\cos x)^{\tan x}$?

57 Views Asked by At

I am given $\lim\limits_{x\rightarrow \frac{\pi}{2}} \frac{\ln(1-\cos x)}{\cos x} = -1$

So,

$(1-\cos x)^{\tan x} = e^{(\tan x) \ln(1-\cos x)}$

and as $x\rightarrow \frac{\pi}{2}$, we have:

$(\tan x)\ln(1-\cos x)= (\sin x)\frac{\ln(1-\cos x)}{\cos x} \rightarrow (1)(-1)=-1$

Therefore,

$\lim \limits_{x\rightarrow \frac{\pi}{2}} (1-\cos x )^{\tan x} = \lim \limits_{x\rightarrow \frac{\pi}{2}} e^{(\tan x) \ln(1-\cos x)}=e^{-1} \tag{1}$

I don't quite understand how the last equality in $(1)$ was arrived at.

It seems what the solution is doing is $\lim\limits_{x\rightarrow c}e^x=e^{\lim\limits_{x\rightarrow c} x} $.

But I thought the rule is:

$\lim\limits_{x\rightarrow c}e^x=e^c$, so I should just substitute $x=\frac{\pi}{2}$ into $(\sin x)\frac{\ln(1-\cos x)}{\cos x}$ which will result in a division by 0, so I need to figure out another method.

Am I wrongly understanding and applying the rule to find the limit at a point of an exponential function?

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On

such an trick is here not necessary, we get by L'Hospital $\lim_{x \to \frac{\pi}{2}}\frac{\frac{\sin(x)}{1-\cos(x)}}{-\sin(x)}=-1$