Scribd
Upload
8 views

Input, Relationship, Output: Functions

A function relates an input to an output and has three main parts: the input, the relationship between the input and output, and the output. Functions can be named or unnamed, but always take an input, apply a relationship, and produce an output in a consistent way for any given input.

Uploaded by

Carlton Grant
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
8 views

Input, Relationship, Output: Functions

A function relates an input to an output and has three main parts: the input, the relationship between the input and output, and the output. Functions can be named or unnamed, but always take an input, apply a relationship, and produce an output in a consistent way for any given input.

Uploaded by

Carlton Grant
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Functions

A function relates an input to an output.

Input, Relationship, Output


We will see many ways to think about functions, but there are always three
main parts:

 The input
 The relationship
 The output

Example: "Multiply by 2" is a very simple function.

Here are the three parts:

Input Relationship Output

0 ×2 0

1 ×2 2

7 ×2 14

10 ×2 20

... ... ...

For an input of 50, what is the output?


Names
First, it is useful to give a function a name.

The most common name is "f", but we can have other names like "g" ... or even
"peanut butter" if we want.

But let's use "f":

what goes into the function is put inside parentheses () after the name of the
function:

So f(x) shows us the function is called "f", and "x" goes in

And we usually see what a function does with the input:

f(x) = x2 shows us that function "f" takes "x" and squares it.

Example: with f(x) = x2:

 an input of 4
 becomes an output of 16.

In fact we can write f(4) = 16.


Sometimes There is No Function
Name
Sometimes a function has no name, and we see something like:

y = x2

But there is still:

 an input (x)
 a relationship (squaring)
 and an output (y)

A Function is Special
But a function has special rules:

 It must work for every possible input value


 And it has only one relationship for each input value

You might also like