Thursday, 8 August 2013

real analysis - Prove that for a>0, limnrightarrowinftyfracann!=0











Prove that for a>0, lim. My attempt is since e^x=\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}{\frac{x^n}{n!}} and the series converges for all x \in \mathbb{R}, by the test of divergence, \lim_{n \rightarrow \infty}{\frac{a^n}{n!}=0}. Is my proof correct ? or are there any alternative ?


Answer



In the interest of providing a (hopefully intuitive) alternative, since you asked for it:




By expanding the factorial (and thereby hopefully making it more tangible) it is fairly easy to see that it grows quicker than the exponential.



\frac{a^n}{n!} = \frac{a}{1}\frac{a}{2}\frac{a}{3}\ldots\frac{a}{n}



The exponential is simply the repeated product of n number of a's, whereas the factorial is the repeated product of n ever-growing integers.



Therefore there must come a point, some n \ge a, after which all new factors of the denominator must be larger than the new factors of the numerator. This gap in the size of a and n will only continue to grow; the final factor itself, \frac{a}{n}, goes to 0 as n does, and so the product of an infinite amount of such small fractions has little choice but to follow suit and approach 0.


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