Your example of a limit is of a limit which is easy to evaluate, but it's still a

perfectly reasonable example!

Here's another fairly easy to grasp example of a limit which avoids triviality.
If I keep tossing a coin as long as it takes, how likely am I to never toss a
head?
Rephrased as a limit problem, we might say
If I toss a coin

times, what is the probability

not yet tossed a head? Now what is the limit as

that I have
of

The mathematical answer to this is

because
as

. Then

gets closer and closer to zero

gets "closer to

".

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16down vote

The reading of your speedometer (e.g.,

85 km/h) is a limit in the real world.
Maybe you think speed is speed, why
not 85 km/h. But in fact your speed is
changing continuously during time,
and the only "solid", i.e., "limitless"
data you have is that it took you

exactly 2 hours to drive the 150 km

from A to B. The figure your
speedometer gives you is at each
instant

of your travel the limit

where

denotes the distance

travelled up to time

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It is hard for me to stray from the confines of mathematics to the 'real

vote6dworld', so let me give you this "example":
own
vote Limits are super-important in that they serve as the basis for the

definitions of the 'derivative' and 'integral', the two fundamental

structures in Calculus! In that context, limits help us understand what
it means to "get arbitrarily close to a point", or "go to infinity". Those
ideas are not trivial, and it is hard to place them in a rigorous context
without the notion of the limit. So more generally, the limit helps us
move from the study of discrete quantity to continuous quantity, and
that is of prime importance in Calculus, and applications of Calculus.
To apply this notion to physics (yes, I'm moving away from math
now), it is possible to apply acontinuous analysis to motion. We'd like
to be able to measure instantaneous speed, which requires the notion
of an instantaneous value. Now this is dependent on the concept of the
limit. That is to say, we want to measure a quantity in an instant, and

we define this "instant" by a limit, i.e., as an approach towards some

infinitesimal time. This is how we would answer, e.g., the
commonplace question "how fast was he going at time
?".
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edited Apr 18 '13 at 20:19

Didn't read your answer til I posted mine. But I'm thinking right along with what you are sayin
to my mind was driving...so I went with that. David Graham May 9 '14 at 19:41

@DavidGraham It seems a few other answers here analyze the applications of the limit to mot
natural example to turn to, seeing as calculus was invented for these sorts of issues. And certai
beautifully the limit works in describing motion-related phenomena. Coffee_Table
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A good example is continuous compounding of interest. Suppose that

vote6dthe money in your bank account has an annual interest rate of
and it
own
vote is compounded

times per year. If you initially had

in your account then after

dollars

years your money has grown to

In continuous compounding your money is compounded every

infinitesimal time step. This is a little non-rigorous but you can think
about it as taking the number of times per year your account is
compounded to infinity:

the well known formula for continuous compounding.

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8 Are you related to Coffee_Table? Why are you

? robjohn Apr 22 '13 at 21:30

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To move in a straight line from A to B, you will have to reach the 1/2
vote0 point C between A and B. To get from C to B, you will have to reach
down the midpoint of line CB.
vote
As you continue moving 1/2 the remaining distance you will always
have a little part left between you and point B. B is called the limit.
You will get infinitely close to it, but never really arrive at point B.
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1 are you saying that I can never reach out and touch my desk? ;) Coffee_Table
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When it comes to the real world, I find that limits inform us that we
vote0d need to adjust our "rise" and "run"(slope) to stay within a boundary
own as we approach it. And for further practical purposes, limits help us
vote
put a finite value (the asymptote) on a seemingly infinite journey of
precision.
For example, as you drive your car up to a stop sign. You begin to
press the brake and your acceleration decreases over time, and you
notice this happening because you can see your speedometer going
down. As you get closer to the stop sign, you work to adjust the rate at
which your speed is falling to ensure you will stop at the right spot.
You begin to notice that the changes in speed become a lot less
dramatic (but the length of time it takes you to advance your position
starts getting a lot longer). You are slowing down to a point where it
is becoming very difficult to see if your speed is still going down.
In theory, you could keep approaching the stop sign infinitely. For

each unit of time, you could be half the distance closer then you were
before. However, at some point you say to yourself "this is good
enough, I consider myself to have arrived at the stop sign". You don't
want to get a ticket for running through a stop sign, because
blaming it on an experiment in Calculus probably won't help
you. You press the brake to the floor for a full stop. The limit zero,
pragmatically speaking, is zero for you.
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edited May 9 '14 at 19:33

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Here is an example: Alex joins a

vote d
own
vote denote time as

, distance as

-mile sprint competition, we

, we can construct

(assuming Alex's speed is constants like

what is limit of

as

is approaching

.) so
, easily we can see

, this is a process of limit. how to describe

this: when t get close to
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, F is close to

.
edited May 9 '14 at 19:40

Ant
6,21311132

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A bit of History: Already in 500 b.c. there were some discussion

vote0dabout the possible existence of an "infinitesimal", i.e. is there a
own smallest particule of time, matter, etc. Around -450 Zeno proposed
vote
some paradoxes for both assumptions. Eudoxe proposed little later that
in mathematics at least, it should be allowed to consider infinitesimals.
Wikipedia: The Eudoxian definition of proportionality uses the

quantifier, "for every ..." to harness the infinite and the infinitesimal,
just as do the modern epsilon-delta definitions of limit and continuity.
An example: I propose you here to have a little look at one of the
Zeno's paradox and show (using limits) that it is in fact not a paradox.
There was a guy called Achilles and a Tortoise. The turtle is at a
distance

from Achilles and runs with speed

in one direction.

Achilles wants to catch the turtle and runs at a speed

in
the same direction. In order to catch the turtle Achilles must first run
through a distance
the turtle runs
distance

in

, meanwhile
. So Achilles needs to run the

in

before

catching the turtle. But, the turtle can run

during this time. Etc. At the end, Achilles never reaches the
Tortoise. However thanks to limits we can show that Achilles has to
run only a finite distance before he catches effectively the turtle.
At each step Achilles has to run
hence the total distance between the starting point of Achilles and the
turtle is given by

And so Achilles has to run only a finite amount of distance before

catching the Turtle.

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