Tuesday, 4 February 2014

algebra precalculus - Why is $x^{p/q}$ ill-defined for $x


This is probably a duplicate but I can't find, if you do let me know and I will delete.





Why is $x^{p/q}$ ill-defined for $x<0$.



I can see that it is, $(-1)^{1/3} \neq (-1)^{2/6}$, but why?



I define $x^{p/q}=\sqrt[q]{x^p}=(\sqrt[q]{x})^p$.



Also how does this affect calculus, in examples what about,




$$\int_{-1}^{0} \sqrt[3]{x} dx ~~~~?= ~~~~\int_{-1}^{0} x^{1/3} dx$$



$\frac{d}{dx}(\sqrt[3]{x})$ at $x=-1$.

No comments:

Post a Comment

real analysis - How to find $lim_{hrightarrow 0}frac{sin(ha)}{h}$

How to find $\lim_{h\rightarrow 0}\frac{\sin(ha)}{h}$ without lhopital rule? I know when I use lhopital I easy get $$ \lim_{h\rightarrow 0}...