The Limit of a Sequence MIT Mathematics（麻省理工学院数学序列的极限）.pdf

3 The Limit of a Sequence 3.1 Definition of limit. In Chapter 1 we discussed the limit of sequences that were monotone; this restriction allowed some short-cuts and gave a quick introduction to the concept. But many important sequences are not monotone—numerical methods, for in- stance, often lead to sequences which approach the desired answer alternately from above and below. For such sequences, the methods we used in Chapter 1 won’t work. For instance, the sequence 1.1, .9, 1.01, .99, 1.001, .999, ... has 1 as its limit, yet neither the integer part nor any of the decimal places of the numbers in the sequence eventually becomes constant. We need a more generally applicable definition of the limit. We abandon therefore the decimal expansions, and replace them by the ap- proximation viewpoint, in which “the limit of {a } is L” means roughly n an is a good approximation to L , when n is large. The following definition makes this precise. After the definition, most of the rest of the chapter will consist of examples in which the limit of a sequence is calculated directly from this definition. There are “limit theorems” which help in determining a limit; we will present some in Chapter 5. Even if you know them, don’t use them yet, since the purpose here is to get familiar with the definition. Definition 3.1 The number L is the limit of the sequence {a } if n (1) given ǫ 0, an ≈ L for n ≫ 1. ǫ If such an L exists, we say {a } converges, or is convergent; if not, {a } diverges, n n or is divergent. The two notations for the limit of a sequence are: lim {a } = L ;