In the following notation (“y equals f of x”) y=f(x) means that the pair (x, y) belongs to the set of pairs defining the function f. Below we will discuss them.ġ) Functional notation: Functions are denoted by a symbol consisting generally of a single letter in italic font, most often the lower-case letters f, g, h. There are various standard ways for denoting functions. But, we sometimes use range as a synonym of the codomain. The range of a function represents the set of images of all elements in the domain. Also, their output values agree on the whole domain.
The two functions f and g will be equal if their domain and codomain sets are the same. The term X and Y in the definition of a function, are respectively the domain and the codomain of the function f. We generally distinguish a function from its graph. Such that x \(\sum\)X, y \(\sum\) Y, and all elements of X is the first component of exactly one order pair in G. Formally, we can define a function f from a set X to a set Y by a set G of order pairs (x, y). Let us study what is a function in math in detail.Īs told earlier it is an operation that links each element of a set X to a single element of a set Y. Suppose if we call the function ‘f”, then we can denote this relation as y = f (x) (read f of x), the element x is the argument or input of the function, and y denotes the value of the function, the output, or the image of x by f. In addition, it is a relation or a process which connects each element x of a set X to the domain of the function and to a single element y of another set Y (usually the same set), the codomain of the function. Typical examples of function in math are from integers to integers or from the real numbers to real numbers.
A technical definition of a what is a function in math is a relation from a set of inputs to a set of possible outputs where each input is related to exactly one output.