Happy October 3rd! — A mathematical insight into the iconic Mean Girls meme
The first time I watched Mean Girls, I was an innocent 13-year-old, giggling at Regina George’s mums boob job and covering my eyes during the kissing scenes. When Lindsay Lohan declared that “THE LIMIT DOES NOT EXIST”, I hadn’t yet discovered the joy (or terror) that is of calculus, so I had no idea what it meant. Now, 8 years later with (almost) a maths degree, I can show you how to solve this fun question and teach you how to bring the North Shore Mathletes to victory.
What is a limit?
The limit of a function at x=a is the value it takes when x is “arbitrarily close” to a. Let’s look at the function f(x) = x+2. The limit of f at x = 2 is the value that f approaches as we get closer and closer to x = 2. For example, if we start at x=0 and move the x coordinate until we get really close to x=2 then our y-value gets really close to 4. Similarly, if we started at x=4 and moved backwards towards x=2 then we also approach 4. Also, we can get 4 by plugging in x=2 into our function (2+2 =4). So why do we need limits if we can substitute the number into the function?
