Function (original) (raw)
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A function is a relation that uniquely associates members of one set with members of another set. More formally, a function from 
to 
is an object 
such that every 
is uniquely associated with an object 
. A function is therefore a many-to-one (or sometimes one-to-one) relation. The set 
of values at which a function is defined is called its domain, while the set 
of values that the function can produce is called its range. Here, the set 
is called the codomain of 
.
In the context of univariate, real-valued functions 
, the fact that domain elements are mapped to unique range elements can be expressed graphically by way of the vertical line test.
In some literature, the term "map" is synonymous with function. Some caution must be exhibited, however, as it is not uncommon for the term map to denote a function with some sort of unspoken regularity assumption, e.g., in point-set topology, where "map" sometimes refers to a function which is continuous with respect to some topology.
Examples of functions over the reals 
include 
(many-to-one), 
(one-to-one), 
(two-to-one except for the single point 
), etc.
Unfortunately, the term "function" is also used to refer to relations that map single points in the domain to possibly multiple points in the range. These "functions" are calledmultivalued functions (or multiple-valued functions), and arise prominently in the theory of complex functions, where the presence of multiple values engenders the use of so-called branch cuts.
Several notations are commonly used to represent (non-multivalued) functions. The most rigorous notation is 
, which specifies that 
is function acting upon a single number 
(i.e., 
is a univariate, or one-variable, function) and returning a value 
. To be even more precise, a notation like "
, where 
" is sometimes used to explicitly specify the domain and codomain of the function. The slightly different "maps to" notation 
is sometimes also used when the function is explicitly considered as a "map."
Generally speaking, the symbol 
refers to the function itself, while 
refers to the value taken by the function when evaluated at a point 
. However, especially in more introductory texts, the notation 
is commonly used to refer to the function 
itself (as opposed to the value of the function evaluated at 
). In this context, the argument 
is considered to be a dummy variable whose presence indicates that the function 
takes a single argument (as opposed to 
, etc.). While this notation is deprecated by professional mathematicians, it is the more familiar one for most nonprofessionals. Therefore, unless indicated otherwise by context, the notation 
is taken in this work to be a shorthand for the more rigorous
.
See also
Complex Function, Map, Multivalued Function, Pathological,Real Function, Single-Valued Function, Special Function Explore this topic in the MathWorld classroom
Portions of this entry contributed by Christopher Stover
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References
Abramowitz, M. and Stegun, I. A. (Eds.). "Miscellaneous Functions." Ch. 27 in Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables, 9th printing. New York: Dover, pp. 997-1010, 1972.Arfken, G. "Special Functions." Ch. 13 in Mathematical Methods for Physicists, 3rd ed. Orlando, FL: Academic Press, pp. 712-759, 1985.Press, W. H.; Flannery, B. P.; Teukolsky, S. A.; and Vetterling, W. T. "Special Functions." Ch. 6 in Numerical Recipes in FORTRAN: The Art of Scientific Computing, 2nd ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, pp. 205-265, 1992.Weisstein, E. W. "Books about Special Functions." http://www.ericweisstein.com/encyclopedias/books/SpecialFunctions.html.
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Cite this as:
Stover, Christopher and Weisstein, Eric W. "Function." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Function.html