The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Single variable Calculus

Instructor: Gilbert Strang
“Do these graphs ever meet?”
by
Victor Miclovich (Yale ’11)

The focus of the following solutions is to determine whether 3x and x3 will

ever meet again after the case where both functions meet at x=3

Mathematics is alive and therefore should be approached more actively. The

simulations I will use in this presentation come from Maxima [my choice of
graphing software]. Similar simulations can be produced using MATLAB,
Maple, and graphing calculators.
For the sake of this discussion I have restricted my use of the command line
and syntax involved in Maxima to a minimum. But I gather that the other
graphing software can be used in so many similar ways.
Maxima is OpenSource and not only has graphing functions but can be a
great tool for Linear Algebra, differential equations (multivariable calculus),
number theory and other numerous branches in math.
Maxima is based on Lisp for its basic construct, and integrated with a tK
(Python) GUI.

Abstract
This paper on solutions of two exponential and oscillatory functions uses an
unorthodox approach. But nevertheless, when computing is involved a
mixture of both numerical analysis and the theoretic calculus should be used
in order to clear understand what’s going on.
Many phenomena on earth are just close approximates, so we shall learn to
deal with such errors!
The graphs involved in this paper are 3x and x3 which appear to have a very
close relationship, but we shall only see that relationship occurs only at one
point.

Do these graphs meet?

Let’s begin by first analyzing the functions f1(x) = 3x and f2(x) = x3. We have
that in the table below for certain values of x ({x | x: 0 ≤ x ≤ 10})

x 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
f1(x)= 1 3 9 27 81 243 729 2 6 1 5900
3x 187 561 968 49
3
f2(x)= 0 1 8 27 64 125 216 343 512 729 1000
x3

From the above tabulated data we can see that at x = 3, both functions will
be able to meet, since the value of any function f(x) is the same…
In this case we try to investigate further… will the curve meet yet again?
These are the key questions we ask in math when we investigate oscillatory
functions.

The function 3x produces, for different x’s, values that are higher than those
of x3 the only time the function ever meets is at x = 3.

Let’s just graph up the functions above, but this time the range will vary for
different instances.

Fig 1.00 graph of x3 against x

Fig. 1.01 Graph of 3x against x

Using computer graphing software unveils calculus in more practical than theoretic
mathematics.
To understand the two functions even further we could zoom in or zoom out.
Below are graphs that show what would happen for a different assortment of
ranges!
A graph for values of x in the range -10≤x≤10

Fig 1.02 Graph of x3 against x

Fig 1.03 graph of 3x against x

Notice that before zooming (will be shown shortly) that for 3x, large negative
x’s will be substantially small and hence it is not shown in the graph Fig 1.03
Let’s zoom further…

Consider a range -0.5≤x≤0.5 and the graph of 3x which is a rather

interesting graph!

Fig 1.04 Ranges; (x | x = {-0.5, -0.4,…,0.5})

Fig 1.05 Ranges {x | x= [-0.05,0.05]}

This shows a more linear graph. As x tends to 0, we see less wavy lines.

Now for the other function, f2(x) = x3 we shall see if there is any possibility of
both graphs have a meeting point in between around -1 and +1 for x.
Fig 1.06 x: x = [-1,1]

Fig 1.07 x: x = [-0.5, 0.5]

Fig 1.08 x: x= [-0.1, 0.1]

From the graphs, Fig 1.05 through 1.08, it can be seen that both graphs will
never meet for values of x < 3 and x >3; they meet only at x = 3.
The next two graphs will prove no resemblance for other ranges, large ones
taking x: x = [-1000, 1000]

You can clear see funnier graphs for large ranges especially when evaluating
the 3x function!

In conclusion, both functions only have equal values for f(x) at x = 3, the rest
are varying and one function has a higher order precedence over the other.