0% found this document useful (0 votes)
10 views2 pages

Lec 2

Uploaded by

Parth Vibhandik
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
0% found this document useful (0 votes)
10 views2 pages

Lec 2

Uploaded by

Parth Vibhandik
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Lecture 2—Functions

January 22

Review
Definition: Let A and B be sets. A function from A to B is a rule which
assigns to each element a of A a specific element of B, often written f (a).
Notation and terminology:
• We usually denote a function by a small letter, such as f .
• We write f : A → B to mean that f is a function from A to B.
• We write a 7→ b if b = f (a).
• If f : A → B, the set A is called the domain of f and the set B is called the
codomain of f . These two sets should be specified as part of the definition
of the function f .
• The range of a function f : A → B is the set of all elements b of B for
which there exists some a ∈ A such that b = f (a). This is a subset of B
in general. Figuring out what this subset is can be difficult.
Sometimes one is given a formula, with or without a description of some
context, and asked to figure out the domain of a function on which
√ the formula
makes sense in the given context. For example, the formula x2 − 9 can be
used to define a function whose domain is [−3, 3] := {x : −3 ≤ x ≤ 3}. However
in some contexts, one may want to restrict to a smaller domain, for example, to
[0, 3] := {x : 0 ≤ x ≤ 3}.

Examples
• Linear functions. Given real numbers m and b one can define a function

f : R → R : x 7→ mx + b.

The graph of this as a subset of R × R looks like a straight line. Then


b = f (0) is the “y-intercept” of the line and m is the “slope.” Review the
meaning of this: Given any x0 ∈ R, if we compute b0 := f (x0 ), then m

1
will tell us how much f will change if we change x. Precisely, if ∆x is the
amount we change x0 , so that x1 := x0 + ∆x, then f changes by m∆x.
Precisely, if ∆y := f (x1 ) − f (x0 ), then
∆y = m∆x.
What makes the graph a straight line is the fact that this equation holds
for all x0 and all ∆x.
• Power functions. Given a natural number n (that is, n = 0, 1, 2, . . .), we
can form the function
fn : R → R : x 7→ xn .
You should know what the graphs of these look like. Note that
fn (−x) = fn (x) if n is even
fn (−x) = −fn (x) if n is odd
For negative n, fn (x) is only defined if x 6= 0:
fn : R \ {0} → R.
If r is a rational number, that is, r = p/q where p and q are integers (with
q 6= 0), one can define fr by doing some work as follows.
Theorem-Definition Let x be a nonnegative real number and let r :=
p/q be a rational number. Then there is a unique real number y such that
y q = xp . By definition, fr : R≥ → R≥ is the function which takes each x
to the corresponding y.
In fact, this definition can be extended to work for irrational values of r
as well, but it takes some time to carry this out. (One must approximate
such values of r by rational ones.)

New functions from old


Definition Let f and g buy two functions from a set A to R. Then

(f + g): A → R : a 7→ f (a) + g(a)


(f g): A → R : a→ 7 f (a)g(a)

f + g is called the sum of f and g and f g is called the product of f and g. If


f is constant, one can usually figure out the graph of f + g and of f g from the
graph of f pretty easily, but in general it takes some thought.
The most important way to combine functions in general is bycomposition.
Definition Let A, B, and C be sets and let f : A → B and g: B → C be
functions, Then g ◦ f is the function A → C defined by:
g ◦ f : A → C : a 7→ g(f (a)).

You might also like