Limits in Mathematics?

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I only ever encountered the limit while learning derivation by first principles in calculus. I understood all the theory behind first principles, but we were never told what happens to the limit h -> 0. Our teacher just said that it goes away after we divide by h, and that’s all I got.

I understand that the limit h -> 0 represents the gap between x and (x + h) getting smaller and smaller. But how does this gap disappear at the end? From searching online I’ve learned that limits are not *equality*, h never *equals* zero, it just gets closer and closer to it. But then why does it equal zero at the end? How is h -> 0 no longer intrinsic to f'(x)? This might be a dumb question but it has stumped me for ages now.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

I appreciate the explanations by everyone so far but could someone eli stupid? Like, pretend I’m shit at math type deal.

This is not my field (seemingly obvious) but I like learning.

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