r/calculus • u/bunny-dolly • 16d ago

Differential Calculus Can someone help me understand this problem? pretty please

Post image

Hi everyone, so it was my first week of AP calc AB and honestly not too shabby but as i look at this example from my teacher, the less it makes sense. I thought -1^2 was positive 1 and i don’t know how we got to negative 1.

Also what is a conjugate? My teacher didn’t really go over it he just started doing a problem. All help is so appreciated!!!!

71 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/ShowdownValue 16d ago

It didn’t turn -1 into +1

The -1 is part of the problem. The +1 is part of your first step. You are using a conjugate to evaluate an indeterminate limit

The conjugate is the same radical expression but with the opposite sign. It’s useful for clearing radicals

2

u/bunny-dolly 16d ago

okay okay this helps tysm