FUNCTION

We open our study of transformational geometry by

introducing the concept of a function – one of the truly fundamental
ideas of all modern mathematics, and of transformational geometry
inparticular. Thought you may not be familiar with tis label, you have
had some experience with functions in geometry and even in the
nonmathematical areas of your life.

The angle measurement postulate frovides a geometric example

of a function. According to this ppostulate, every angle in the plane is
assocated with a unique real number. This number is called the measure
of the angle and lies between 0 and 180. In making this assumption we
are establishing an angle measurement function which relates the set of
all angles to the set of real numbers between 0 and 180. Note that under
the angle measurement function, exactly one number corresponds to
any given angle.
 For a nonmathematical illustration of a function we turn to what
might be called “the last initial function” which assigns to every American the
first letter of his last name. We say that this function is from the set of all
Americans to the set of all letters of the alphabet. Now we are ready for the
definition which spells out the function concept in precise terms.

Definition. A function from a set A 𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝑠𝑒𝑡 B is a correspondence

which associates with every member of A 𝑒𝑥𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑙𝑦 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 B .

We customarily designate a given function by a single letter, such as f

or G, but subscripts are also frequently used as in f1 or Gt. The set B is called
the domain of the function. For the angle measurement function, the domain is
the set of all angles. Leting L be the sumbol for the last initial function, we
may describe the domain of the function by writing:
Dmn L = {x : x is an American}
 The central fact about a function is this. To every domain element
there corresponds one and only one member of the second set B , and it us
this property which distinguishes functions from broader types of
correspondences. The matching described in the angle measurement postulate
defines a function from the set of all angles to the set

B = 𝑏: 0 < 𝑏 < 180

because exactly one member of B is assigned to each angle. On the other

hand it would be false to say that the postulate defines a function from B to
the set of all angles, because for any given number such as 90 there correspond
infinitely many angles which have measure 90.
 Turning to another example, let us suppose that at Central High
School there are four senior homerooms. The last names of the
homeroom teachers are Bolyai, Gauss, Lobatchewsky, and Riemann;
and seniors are assigned to homeroom teachers in accordance with the
following last intial rule:
A-D  Bolyai M-P  Lobatchewsky
E-L  Gauss Q-Z  Riemann

Clearly each student is assigned to one and only one of the four
homeroom teachers, and a function we shall call h has been defied from
the set A = {x : x is a Central High senior} to the set B = {Bolyai,
Gauss, Lobatchewsky, Riemann}. For a given senior named Abel, we
indicate the assignment by writing
h(Abel) = Bolyai

We may also say that Bolyai is the image of Abel under the homeroom
teacher function, and that Abel is a pre-image of Bolyai under h. More
generally, if f is a function from A to B and f associates the element y
with a given element 𝑥 ∈A , then we write
y = f(x)
 The above illustrations have been nonnimerical, but the
majority of the functions met in elementray mathematics are form one
set of real numbers to a second set of real numbers. For example let g
be the function with
Dmn g = {3, 4, 5, 6}

which assigns to each domain element the number obtained by squaring

that domain element and adding 3. Accordingly
g(3) = 12 and g(4) = 19.

This function can also be described by listing a set of ordered pairs, that
is
g = {(3, 12), (4, 19), (5, 28), (6, 39)}

with the understanding that for each ordered pair the second member is
the number, or value, assigned to the first member of that ordered pair.
Thus 39 is the value which g assigns to 6.