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15 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.
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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)).

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