Transcript for:
Video #3: Adjusting Calculator Window to View Functions

[Instructor] Anyway, what we want to do is use the graphing feature of the graphing calculator to help us find a good viewing window where we could actually see the graph. Say it's not in the standard viewing window, which would be negative ten to positive ten on the x axis and negative ten to positive ten on the y axis. That's what we would call the standard viewing window. But not every function is as viewable, or is is really fits in that standard viewing window nicely. So we're going to look at how you can easily adjust the viewing window so that you can see the graph that you want. So suppose over here we wanted to estimate the limit of this function x squared minus four over the natural log of three minus x plus 15. Suppose we wanted to estimate this limit, or the limit of this function as x goes to negative eight we should say. So just for time, I already went ahead and plugged in this function in the calculator. I was very careful about putting parentheses around the numerator and putting parentheses around the denominator, just so that the input in the calculator is correct. Now if we look at this from a standard window, so I can do window and then, I'm sorry, I can hit zoom rather, and I can click on number six standard. And it will put me in a standard viewing window which goes from negative ten to positive ten here on the x axis, negative ten to positive ten here on the y axis. But what we see is we really don't see any part of the graph. So we need to figure out how can I adjust this window pretty easily in order in order to see it. Trial and error is a way, it just doesn't work very efficiently most of the time. So the first thing I want to point out about this function that we have here is that the domain is from negative infinity to two and 2 to 3. So on the x axis we really don't need to go much past three. And I'm taking a limit as x goes to negative eight. So I might want to bring the viewing window a little bit more to the left of negative ten. So here's a technique that you can use that really helps you find a good viewing window for a function. So I'm going to click on window. And we want to set the x min and x max. So let's say we're going to take our x minimum out to -15. Because the limit I'm trying to find is as x goes to negative eight. So I would be at least to the left of negative eight a pretty good bet. And then we know that our domain does not go to the right of three. So we could really here make our x max four. And now that you've set the x axis, if you click on zoom and then I'm going to arrow down so that you can see beyond nine here. So option zero is zoom fit. And that's the option that I'm going to choose here. And when I either select zero so you can click on zero or tap zero here. Or you can just click enter because zero is already highlighted. Then what this does is it fixes the x axis where I had it set. So from -15 to positive five. But then it gives me a nice viewing window for the y axis. So it automatically finds some decent y values. And if you click on window, you'll see that the y values go from 10 to 91. So this gives us a nice way where we can approximate. Then this limit as x goes to negative eight graphically. You could do you could find the limit graphically. I'm not going to do that in this video. I just wanted you to see how you could use the graphing feature of the calculator to help you find a nice viewing window for a function that doesn't really fit nicely into a standard viewing window.