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This question was posted recently on a Facebook group. Find the limit:

$$\lim \limits_{n\to \infty} \left(\sin\left(n\pi\sqrt[3]{n^3+3n^2+4n-5}\right)\right)$$

My original analysis was: Regarding the term inside the cube root, as $n \to \infty$, the $n^3$ term dominates over the other three, which means the whole expression tends to $n^3$, which means the limit becomes $\sin(\pi n^2),$ which is indeterminate.

However when I write a program using quad precision math, the limit appears to come out as $\frac{\sqrt3}{2}$.

       n                  function
10.00000000000 0.338982167791830794609548974616303
100.0000000000 0.822015011893709733119339192500436
1000.000000000 0.861814054083077403616129702505113
10000.00000000 0.865606297805291762325586009448498
100000.0000000 0.865983513611437523662920376306691
1000000.000000 0.866021214971522960916097562022775
10000000.00000 0.866024984905191057632658510545867
100000000.0000 0.866025361896534314025779227654027
1000000000.000 0.866025399595646736775927996413246
10000000000.00 0.866025403365387551257815743216080
100000000000.0 0.866025403723528925571455996123769

It is not clear to me analytically why.

Update: n is not necessarily an integer. In fact if 0.6 is added to $n$ in my program, the limit is now a different number:

       n                  function
10.6000000000000    -0.25072893003135069931292
100.600000000000    -0.74448187296497062922343
1000.60000000000    -0.79144938488268274939869
10000.6000000000    -0.79602325415859850300212
100000.600000000    -0.79647926568469037482324
1000000.60000000    -0.79652485293086939316975
10000000.6000000    -0.79652941151626998534906
100000000.600000    -0.79652986737341769811125
1000000000.60000    -0.79652991295911686316286
10000000000.6000    -0.79652991751749772070301
100000000000.600    -0.79652991795050127245904
1000000000000.60    -0.79652991562289847750918
10000000000000.6    -0.79652965390217094955424
Adrian
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    Hint:$$\sqrt[3]{n^3+3n^2+4n-5}=(n+1)\sqrt[3]{1+\frac{n-6}{(n+1)^3}}\in n+1+\frac{1}{3n}+o\left(\frac1n\right).$$Now use the fact that $n(n+1)$ is even to prove the limit is $\sin\frac{\pi}{3}$, as desired. – J.G. Dec 29 '22 at 14:42
  • I don't follow your logic, particularly the "is an element of" sign on the right which implies a set to me.. Then I think you are assuming n is an integer with your statement that $n(n+1)$ is even. But that cannot be assumed. – Adrian Dec 29 '22 at 16:13
  • Yeah, I'm writing an answer I'll be done in like half an hour. – Sarvesh Ravichandran Iyer Dec 29 '22 at 16:15
  • I just lost half my answer to a random shutdown procedure. Will take more time. – Sarvesh Ravichandran Iyer Dec 29 '22 at 17:05
  • $f(n)\in g(n)+o(h(n))$, or $f(n)-g(n)\in o(h(n))$, is often written with an $=$ instead of $\in$, which is technically incorrect. The given function of $n$ only has an $n\to\infty$ limit if $n$ is understood to be constrained to integers (or, as noted in your edit, integers plus a specific fixed offset), rather than reals; if the latter were of interest, the variable would probably be called $x$ instead of $n$. My logic is to obtain the sine's argument as an integer multiple of $2\pi$ plus a $o(1)$ term. – J.G. Dec 29 '22 at 17:31
  • By the way, your offset-$0.6$ analysis is wrong. It only works because the integers to which you're adding it are multiples of $5$. You only really get a limit for $n$ constrained to multiples of $k$ plus a fixed multiple of $1/(2k)$. – J.G. Dec 29 '22 at 17:34
  • ok so if n is real, the result is indeterminate, correct? – Adrian Dec 29 '22 at 17:37
  • @Adrian are you sure that in the original facebook post $n$ was intended as a real number and not as an integer number? – Vincenzo Tibullo Dec 29 '22 at 17:38
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    @enzotib no I'm not - it didn't say, but I agree n would normally refer to an integer, but I still can't follow the proof which results in $\sqrt3/2$ – Adrian Dec 29 '22 at 17:40
  • Come to think of it, I think the offset actually needs to be a multiple of $1/k$, not $1/(2k)$, to prevent sign oscillation. – J.G. Dec 29 '22 at 17:41
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    The key aspect is to consider periodic nature of $\sin$ function. The expression under limit can be written as $\sin (2\pi a_n) $ and then we need to analyze behavior of the integer part $[a_n] $ of $a_n$ and fractional part of $a_n$ namely $a_n-[a_n] $ as $n\to\infty$. For the original problem the fractional part tends to $1/6$. – Paramanand Singh Dec 30 '22 at 05:23

3 Answers3

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The use of $n$ implies that this should be considered a natural number. This assumption is necessary to pin down the leading terms in the sine argument sufficienly to define the limit.

The sine of something times $2\pi$ is determined by the noninteger part of the multiplier. Thus for instance $\sin(1500.235×2\pi)$ equals $\sin(0.235×2\pi)$. So we set out to see how this noninteger part behaves.

Render $(n^3+3n^2+4n-5)^{1/3}=(n+a+bn^{-1})+O(n^{-2}),$

where the $O(n^{-2})$ contribution term multiplied by $n$ will converge to zero as $n\to\infty$. We apply the Binomial Theorem, explicitly keeping those terms not in $O(n^{-2})$:

$[(n^3)+(3n^2+4n-5)]^{1/3}=n+\dfrac{(n^{-2})(3n^2+4n-5)}{3}-\dfrac{2(n^{-5})(3n^2+4n-5)^2}{9×2!}+O(n^{-2})$

$=n+1+\dfrac{1}{3n}+O(n^{-2})$

So

$\sin[\pi n(n^3+3n^2+4n-5)^{1/3}]=\sin[\pi n(n+1)+(\pi/3)+O(n^{-1})]$

The term $n(n+1)$ is even for all natural numbers $n$, so the contribution from $\pi n(n+1)$ is canceled by the periodicity if the sine function. This leaves $+\pi/3$ as the limiting argument. The function limit, which matches the quoted computation, follows.

CiaPan
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Oscar Lanzi
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3

The $n^3$ does "dominate" over the other terms in the cube root. That's a good observation.

However, observe that if $\frac{f(n)}{g(n)} \to 1$, it does not imply that $\frac{\sin f(n)}{\sin(g(n))} \to 1$ as $n \to \infty$ (the obvious counterexamples being say $2\pi n$ and $2\pi n + \frac{\pi}{2}$).

Therefore, domination of the kind you demonstrated is not the right kind of "domination" that you require to solve this answer. You need to dig deeper.


The right kind of domination is provided by the fact that if you want a "dominating" function $\sin (g(n))$ to capture the behaviour of the function $\sin(f(n))$, then what you want precisely is that $\frac{\sin f(n)}{\sin g(n)} \to 1$.

What the counterexample tells you is that if $f,g$ are two functions for which you want the relation $\frac{\sin f(n)}{\sin g(n)} \to 1$ to hold, then it's not even sufficient to have $f(n)-g(n)$ bounded as $n \to \infty$. It must go to zero : and at a certain rate.

What rate? The following lemma is the answer.

Lemma : Suppose that $a_n, n \geq 1$ is an increasing sequence of real numbers , $a_n \to \infty$. Suppose that $f,g$ are functions taking positive values such that $a_n$ lie in the domain of both $f$ and $g$. If $$ \lim_{n \to \infty} \frac{|f(a_n)-g(a_n)|}{\sin g(a_n)} = 0 $$ then $$ \lim \frac{ \sin f(a_n)}{\sin g(a_n)} =1 $$ In particular, suppose that $\lim_{n \to \infty} \sin g(a_n) \neq 0$ and $\lim_{n \to \infty} \sin f(a_n) - \sin g(a_n) = 0$. Then, the above conclusion holds.

Proof : By the mean value theorem for the $\sin$ function applied at the points $f(a_n)$ and $g(a_n)$ (and using the fact that $|\cos x| \leq 1$ for all $x$), $\left|\sin f(a_n) - \sin g(a_n)\right| \leq |f(a_n)-g(a_n)|$, so that $$ \left|\frac{\sin f(a_n)}{\sin g(a_n)} - 1\right| \leq \frac{|f(a_n)-g(a_n)|}{g(n)} \leq \frac{|f(n)-g(n)|}{g(n)} $$ whence we are done by the squeeze theorem. $\blacksquare$

So given a "complicated" function $f$, the "dominating" term $g$ will have to be much, much better than just satisfying $\frac{f(n)}{g(n)} \to 1$. The above lemma expresses this as well.


Now to solve the first problem, where we have $f(a_n) = a_n\pi\sqrt[3]{a_n^3+3a_n^2+4a_n-5}$ and $a_n = n$ (we are along the integers).

To find $g$, we use the fact that $n^3+3n^2+4n-5$ is very close to $n^3+3n^2+3n+1 = (n+1)^3$. Therefore, we write $$ n^3+3n^2+4n-5 = (n+1)^3 \sqrt[3]{1+\frac{n-6}{(n+1)^3}} $$ whence $$ f(n) = n(n+1)\pi \sqrt[3]{1+\frac{n-6}{(n+1)^3}} $$ Now, we are tempted to take $g(n) = n(n+1)\pi$ : however, observe that $n(n+1)\pi$ is always an even multiple of $\pi$, therefore $\sin(g(n)) = 0$ for all $n$. There's no way that the limit in the lemma can exist!

Therefore, we need to go one step further. To do this, we require the Taylor expansion of $\sqrt{3}{1+\frac{n-6}{(n+1)^3}}$ around the point $1$. If $y_n = \frac{n-6}{(n+1)^3}$ then the Taylor expansion to the first order gives $$ \sqrt[3]{1+y_n} = 1+\frac{y_n}{3} + o(y_n) $$ where $o(y_n)$ is a function of $n$ which , when divided by $y_n$, goes to $0$ as $n \to \infty$.

Putting this into $f(n)$, $$ f(n) = n(n+1)\pi + \frac{n(n+1)\pi y_n}{3} + o(n(n+1)\pi y_n) $$ Finally putting back the value of $y_n$ for the middle and last terms, $$ f(n) = n(n+1)\pi +\frac{\pi}{3}\frac{n(n+1)(n-6)}{(n+1)^3}+o\left(\frac{n(n+1)(n-6)\pi}{(n+1)^3}\right) $$

Observe each term now : if we let $$ g(n) = n(n+1)\pi +\frac{\pi}{3}\frac{n(n+1)(n-6)}{(n+1)^3} $$ then it's easy to see that $\frac{n(n+1)(n-6)}{(n+1)^3} \to 1$ as $n \to \infty$. Therefore, by the periodicity of sine, $\sin g(n) \to \sin \frac{\pi}{3} = \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}$ as $n \to \infty$. On the other hand, observe that $$ f(n)-g(n) = o\left(\frac{n(n+1)(n-6)\pi}{(n+1)^3}\right) $$ The right hand side , once you see the powers of $n$ on the top and bottom, is just $o(1)$. Therefore, $|f(n)-g(n)| \to 0$ as $n \to \infty$.

Thus, the lemma can be applied and $\frac{\sin f(n)}{\sin g(n)} \to 1$. However, using the produce rule, this is the same as $\sin f(n) \to \frac{\sqrt 3}{2}$, as desired.


What about the second sequence? Here we have $a_n = n+0.6$.

Notice something very important : here, when we use algebra similar to the previous section and write $$ f(a_n) = a_n(a_n+1)\pi\sqrt[3]{1+\frac{a_n-6}{(a_n+1)^3}} $$ and think of taking $g(a_n) = a_n(a_n+1)\pi$, then the limit $\sin g(a_n)$ doesn't even exist. Hence, this $g$ won't work.

However, even if we Taylor expand $g$, it turns out that we can't get rid of the bad term $a_n(a_n+1)\pi$, which is creating all the periodicity.

Therefore, we are inclined to think that , despite the apparent evidence to the opposite, $\lim_{n \to \infty} f(n+0.6)$ doesn't exist. That is, not only is the lemma not applicable, the end result isn't true either.

To prove this rigorously, we should demonstrate explicitly two different subsequences of $n+0.6$ for which $f$ converges to different values.

Let's see how we can do that. Clearly, we may still write using the same Taylor expansion as in the previous proof that $$ f(n) = g(n)+ o\left(\frac{n(n+1)(n-6)\pi}{(n+1)^3}\right) $$ and simply replace $n$ with $n+0.6$ to obtain $$ f(n+0.6) = g(n+0.6)+o\left(\frac{(n+0.6)(n+1.6)(n-5.4)\pi}{(n+1.6)^3}\right) $$

However, $g(n+0.6) = (n+0.6)(n+1.6)\pi + \frac{\pi}{3}\frac{(n+0.6)(n+1.6)(n-5.4)\pi}{(n+1.6)^3}$. The second term is small, so if we can get the first term to behave badly, we can get the whole thing to behave badly.

To do that, let's observe that $$ g(n+0.6) = n(n+1)\pi + \left(1.2n + 0.96\pi\right)\pi + \frac{\pi}{3}\frac{(n+0.6)(n+1.6)(n-5.4)\pi}{(n+1.6)^3} $$

We can use two different subsequences now : let $a_n = 5,10,15,20,25,\ldots$ and let $b_n=1,6,11,16,\ldots$. It can be verified that $$ \sin g(a_n) \approx \sin \left(0.96\pi\right) $$ while $$ \sin g(b_n) \approx \sin \left(0.16 \pi\right) $$ In particular, taking each of these $a_n$ and $b_n$, the limit $\lim_{n \to \infty} g(n+0.6)$ does not exist. (Interestingly enough, observe that the noted subsequential limits do exist, so the lemma in the first section can be used to prove limit theorems for $f(a_n),f(b_n)$.)

However, because of the mean value theorem for $\sin$, $\sin f(n+0.6) - \sin g(n+0.6) \to 0$ as $n \to \infty$. This shows that $\sin f(n+0.6)$ does not exist.

Using a similar argument, one can easily show

Suppose that $r$ is any non-zero rational number, or any number such that $\frac{r}{\pi}$ is irrational. Then, $\lim_{n \to \infty} f(n+r)$ does not exist, where $f(x) = x \pi \sqrt[3]{x^3+3x^2+4x-5}$

The lemma can be used in a lot more general situation (and can be generalized to more functions than the sine) than has been done here, of course.

2

A bit late answer but I thought it's worth mentioning since it needs only some simple limits without $o$-techniques.

Step 1 - rewriting the expression appropriately: $$\sqrt[3]{n^3+3n^2+4n-5} = \sqrt[3]{(n+1)^3 + (n+1) - 7} = (n+1)\sqrt[3]{1 + \frac 1{(n+1)^2} - \frac 7{(n+1)^3}}$$ $$\Rightarrow \left(\sin\left(n\pi\sqrt[3]{n^3+3n^2+4n-5}\right)\right) = \sin\left(n(n+1)\pi\left(\sqrt[3]{1 + \frac 1{(n+1)^2} - \frac 7{(n+1)^3}}-1\right)\right)$$ $$= \sin\left(\pi\left(1-\frac 1{n+1}\right) \underbrace{\frac{\sqrt[3]{1 + \frac 1{(n+1)^2} - \frac 7{(n+1)^3}}-1}{\frac 1{(n+1)^2}}}_{w_n}\right)$$ Step 2 - Limit for $w_n$: (elementary or L'Hospital) $$\lim_{x\to 0} \frac{\sqrt[3]{1+x^2-7x^3}-1}{x^2} = \frac 13$$ $$\Rightarrow \lim_{n\to\infty} w_n = \frac 13$$ Step 3 - just addition theorems and taking limits: \begin{eqnarray*} \sin\left(\pi\left(1-\frac 1{n+1}\right)w_n\right) & = & \sin(\pi w_n)\cos\left(\frac {\pi}{n+1}w_n\right) - \cos\pi w_n \sin \left(\frac {\pi}{n+1}w_n\right) \\ & \stackrel{n\to\infty}{\longrightarrow} & \sin \frac {\pi}3 \end{eqnarray*}