Thomas' Calculus 13th Edition

Published by Pearson
ISBN 10: 0-32187-896-5
ISBN 13: 978-0-32187-896-0

Chapter 2: Limits and Continuity - Section 2.3 - The Precise Definition of a Limit - Exercises 2.3 - Page 66: 42

Answer

See explanations.

Work Step by Step

Step 1. We only need to use the first equation of the piece-wise function as when $x\to-2, x\ne-2$. Thus we can identify the quantities as: $f(x)=x^2,c=-2,L=4$. Step 2. For a given small value $\epsilon\gt0$, we need to find a value $\delta\gt0$ so that for all $x$ when $0\lt |x+2|\lt\delta$, we have $|x^2−4|\lt\epsilon$ Step 3. The last inequality gives $−\epsilon\lt x^2−4\lt\epsilon$ or $4−\epsilon\lt x^2\lt4+\epsilon$ Step 4. Assume $\epsilon\lt4$, and $x\lt0$; we can get $\sqrt {4−\epsilon}\lt -x \lt \sqrt {4+\epsilon}$ or $-\sqrt {4+\epsilon} \lt x \lt -\sqrt {4−\epsilon}$ which leads to $2-\sqrt {4+\epsilon} \lt x+2 \lt 2-\sqrt {4−\epsilon}$ Step 5. Compare the result from step 4 with the requirement for the value $\delta$ in step 2; we can set $\delta$ as the smaller value of $|2-\sqrt {4+\epsilon}|$ and $|2-\sqrt {4−\epsilon}|$ Step 6. For $\epsilon\geq4$, choose $\delta$ to be the smaller of $2$ and $|2-\sqrt {4+\epsilon}|$ Step 7. With the setting of the $\delta$ value, we can go backwards through the steps of 4,3,2 to reach a conclusion that for all $x$ when $0\lt |x+2|\lt\delta$, we have $|x^2−4|\lt\epsilon$ which proves the limit statement.
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