Chapter 1

Problems
√
1. Let n = 2, 3, . . . ; then n n tends to 1 as n √
becomes arbitrarily large.
Lemma.Let b > 1 and n = 2, 3, . . . ; then n b tends to 1 as n becomes arbitrarily large.
√
2. Let b > 1. Then n( n b − 1), for n = 2, 3, . . . , tends to ln b as n becomes arbitrarily large.
3. The function ln x tends to infinity with x, but more slowly than any positive power of x. In
other words, ln x becomes arbitrarily large with x but (ln x)/xs , for any s > 0, tends to 0 as
x becomes arbitrarily large.
4. The function ey tends to infinity with y more rapidly than any power of y, or y t /ey , for any
t > 0, tends to 0 when y becomes arbitrarily large for all values of t however great.
5. Suppose that we have n positive numbers a1 , a2 , . . . , an such that a1 + a2 + · · · + an = K.
The fundamental problem is: When does the product a1 a2 . . . an attain its maximum value?

6. Prove that
cos(x − y) = cos x cos y + sin x sin y

7. Prove that for 0 < x < 21 π, we have

sin x 1
0 < cos x < <
x cos x

8. Prove that for every real a we have

Z a
cos xdx = sin a,
0

Z a
sin xdx = 1 − cos a,
0

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2 CHAPTER 1. PROBLEMS
Chapter 2

Answers
√
1. Proof. Let n
n = 1 + vn for n = 2, 3, . . . Then vn > 0 and
n(n − 1) 2
n = (1 + vn )n = 1 + nvn + vn + · · · + vnn .
2
Since all terms in the last sum are positive we have
n(n − 1) 2
n>1+ vn
2
or
n 2
1> v
2 n
Thus r
2
0 < vn < for n = 2, 3, . . .
n
√
It can be seen that vn tends to 0 as n becomes arbitrarily large and therefore n
n tends to
1.
√
2. Proof. Let n be a positive integer larger than 1 and put q = n b. Then

1 < q < q 2 < q 3 < · · · < q n−1 < q n = b

Let x0 = 1, x1 = q, x2 = q 2 , x3 = q 3 , · · · , xn−1 = q n−1 , xn = q n = b and suppose that the

interval [1, b] is split up into the n subintervals

[x0 , x1 ], [x1 , x2 ], [x2 , x3 ], . . . , [xn−1 , xn ]

On the interval x0 , x1 we construct the rectangle with altitude 1/x0 , on [x1 , x2 ] the rectangle
with altitude 1/x1 and so on. The sum of the areas of these n rectangles is
1 1 1
(q − 1) + (q 2 − q) + 2 (q 3 − q 2 ) + · · · + n−1 (q n − q n−1 ) = n(q − 1)
q q q
The foregoing sum is an approximating sum for A1,b = ln b We know that q tends to 1
as n becomes arbitrarily large; this means that we can mke the length of the subintervals
[x0 , x1 ], [x1 , x2 ], [x2 , x3 ], . . . , [xn−1 , xn ] as small as we please by taking n sufficiently large
and our claim therefore follows.
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3. Proof. Since ln t tends to ln a as t tends to a (why?), we get that ln n n =√(1/n) ln n tends
to 0 as n becomes arbitrarily large. However in the proof of the fact that n n tends to 1 as
n tends to infinity we used integer values of n. We must verify that (ln t)/t tends to 0 as t
becomes arbitrarily large and t denotes any real number. Let [t] stand for the integer part
or t. Then
ln t ln([t] + 1) [t] + 1 ln([t] + 1)
0< < = for t > 1
t [t] [t] [t] + 1
shows thta (ln t)/t tends to 0 as t becomes arbitrarily large. Letting t = xs for any s > 0, we
see that
ln xs ln x
s
=s· s
x x
tends to 0 as t becomes arbitrarily large. But s is positive and fixed.

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4 CHAPTER 2. ANSWERS

4. Proof. We know that ln x/xs tends to 0 for s > 0 as x tends to infinity. Putting t = 1/s and
raising the whole thing to t we have
 t t
ln x (ln x)
=
x1/t x

which tends to 0. Putting x = ey we get

t
(ln ey ) yt
=
ey ey

which tends to 0

5. Proof. From the observation that (x − y)2 ≥ 0 we can drive the fact that

x2 + y 2
xy ≤ for all x, y ∈ R
2
Completing the square on the right hand side or replacing x and y by their square roots we
get
√ x+y
xy ≤
2
 2
x+y
xy ≤
2
Thus for two numbers with a constant sum the product will always be less than or equal to
the product of there average. The geometric interpretation is that for rectangles with a fixed
perimeter and sides of length x and y, the largest area will be of the square with side equal
to 1/4th the perimeter.
On the other hand we can also write the equation as
√
4 xy < 2x + 2y for all nonnegative x 6= y

Now if we hold the area A = xy constant, the perimeter 2x + 2y is always greater than four
√
times xy which is the side of the square of equal area. Therefore for a given area the square
√
with the sides xy has the least perimeter.