Why can L’Hôpital’s Rule be applied to $ \lim_{x\to\infty}\frac{\frac{1}{x}}{\ln x} $

limitsreal-analysis

$$
\lim_{x\to\infty}\frac{\frac{1}{x}}{\ln x}
$$

Surely L'Hôpital's Rule can't be applied here because $\lim_{x\to\infty}\frac{1}{x}=0 \neq \lim_{x\to\infty}\ln x= \infty$ but the resource I am using says L'Hôpital's Rule does apply here.

Differentiating the numerator and denominator gets you $\lim_{x\to\infty}\frac{-x}{x^2} = \lim_{x\to\infty}-\frac{1}{x} = 0$ Is this just a coincidence?

Best Answer

I don't know where this comes from so I can't say if there's a mistake or not. But it's no coincidence. L'Hospital's rule is applicable here. The version of the rule as stated in most textbooks says you need to have a limit of the form $$\frac{\infty}{\infty}$$ A more general version of the rule applies to limits of the form $$\frac{\text{anything}}{\infty}$$ There's not even a requirement that the limit of the numerator exist! Of course, all other (often neglected) hypotheses of the rule still have to be satisfied.