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Concept
Limit of a function
Summary
Although the function \tfrac{\sin x}{x} is not defined at zero, as x becomes closer and closer to zero, \tfrac{\sin x}{x} becomes arbitrarily close to 1. In other words, the limit of \tfrac{\sin x}{x}, as x approaches zero, equals 1.
In mathematics, the limit of a function is a fundamental concept in calculus and analysis concerning the behavior of that function near a particular input.
Formal definitions, first devised in the early 19th century, are given below. Informally, a function f assigns an output f(x) to every input x. We say that the function has a limit L at an input p, if f(x) gets closer and closer to L as x moves closer and closer to p. More specifically, when f is applied to any input sufficiently close to p, the output value is forced arbitrarily close to L. On the other hand, if some inputs very close to p are taken to outputs that stay a fixed distance apart, then we say the limit does not exist.
The notion of a limit has many applications in modern calculus. In particular, the many definitions of continuity employ the concept of limit: roughly, a function is continuous if all of its limits agree with the values of the function. The concept of limit also appears in the definition of the derivative: in the calculus of one variable, this is the limiting value of the slope of secant lines to the graph of a function.
Although implicit in the development of calculus of the 17th and 18th centuries, the modern idea of the limit of a function goes back to Bolzano who, in 1817, introduced the basics of the epsilon-delta technique to define continuous functions. However, his work was not known during his lifetime.
In his 1821 book Cours d'analyse, Augustin-Louis Cauchy discussed variable quantities, infinitesimals and limits, and defined continuity of by saying that an infinitesimal change in x necessarily produces an infinitesimal change in y, while claims that he used a rigorous epsilon-delta definition in proofs. In 1861, Weierstrass first introduced the epsilon-delta definition of limit in the form it is usually written today.
Official source
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