Thread: Horizontal asymptotes

I completely forgot everything about asympotes and I received some homework with these 2 questions:

Find the horizontal asymptotes of each:

1. y = [(x^2) - (6x^4)]/(3x^4) + 8
2. y = tan^-1(e^x)

Any help would be much appreciated. I'm not looking for direct answers, I need to learn how to do this, so if you can please show the steps involved that would be great.

Thanks

bump i really need help on this please

Originally Posted by GameTheory

I completely forgot everything about asympotes and I received some homework with these 2 questions:

Find the horizontal asymptotes of each:

1. y = [(x^2) - (6x^4)]/(3x^4) + 8

What happens to the fraction as y goes to + or - infinity? Note that the denominator is of higher degree than the numerator.

2. y = tan^-1(e^x)

Look at a graph of tan(x).

Any help would be much appreciated. I'm not looking for direct answers, I need to learn how to do this, so if you can please show the steps involved that would be great.

Thanks

I thought the degree of the numerator and the denominator are the same. The degree of the numerator is 4 (-6x^4) and the degree of the denominator is: also 4 (3x^4).

Following the rules then the horizontal asymptote should be -6/3 which is -2 but when i graph it on my ti-83 no horizontal asymptote shows up