What are limits?

Limits are like trying to get as close as possible to something without actually touching it.

Imagine you're on a seesaw with your friend. You want to balance perfectly in the middle, but you can't quite reach that point yet. As you both move closer and closer to the center, you’re getting closer to balance, even if you haven’t reached it exactly. That’s what a limit is: a value something gets really close to, without necessarily ever touching it.

Think of a cookie jar that's slowly being eaten by your little brother. Every minute, he takes one cookie out. The number of cookies keeps going down, but there's always one less than before. If we keep this up forever, the number of cookies will get closer and closer to zero, but it might never actually reach zero if the jar is magical (but we’re not using magic here!).

Limits help us understand what happens as things change. They are like a predictor, telling us where something is heading, even if it hasn’t gotten there yet. You use them every day when you count down to a party or watch your favorite snack disappear little by little.