Friday Fave: Function Notation

You spend a lot of time working with functions in courses such as Trigonometry, Algebra II, and Calculus. If you’re still writing all those functions as y= this or that, you’re missing out on opportunities to do some sophisticated mathematics.

Instead, you could be using function notation in the Desmos graphing calculator.

animation of typing "f(x)=x^2+2" in the expression list of a graphing calculator

Once you’ve defined your function, you can do lots of things you’d expect to be able to do, such as find individual values, compose functions, and graph the inverse relation.

animation of typing "f(2)", "f(g(x))" and "x=f(y)" in the graphing calculator's expression list

Use subscripts to define as many functions as you need. f_1(x) and h_103(x) are just keystrokes away!

Mathematical power from simple, natural notation makes function notation this week’s Friday Fave.