Study guide

Lecturer

Do Duc Tan
Email tan.dd@vgu.edu.vn
Oce A.105
Oce hours By appointments

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 Study guide

Course description and assessment

Aim This course provides students with fundamental knowledge in Algebra and
Calculus. The emphasis is on both conceptual understanding and technical skill.
Students will also learn how to apply those mathematical knowledge to modeling
real-life problems.

Assessment Attendance and tutorials (10%), mid-term test (40%) and exam
(50%).
Attendance and tutorials: Don't be late. There are 7 tutorials.
Test: 75 minutes long (plus 5 minutes reading time) in class in 2nd lecture
of Week 5.
Exam: To be announced.
A resitting exam will be available with either a Fail or a Pass grade.
(Not applied to those who fail due to academic oenses.)
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 Study guide

Textbook The textbooks for this course are

+ Precalculus, Mathematics for Calculusby James Stewart, Lothar
Redlin, and Saleem Watson (7th edition).
+ Calculus, Early Transcendentals by James Stewart (8th edition).

Academic honesty, cheating and plagiarism Cheating is viewed as a serious

academic oence. The University will not tolerate cheating or assisting
others to cheat. Instances of cheating or plagiarism will result in a fail for
this course.

Look through the Syllabus for more information.

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 Functions
&
Graphs of functions

Tan Do
Vietnamese-German University

Lecture 1

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 Content

In this lecture

Functions: denition, domain, codomain and range

Graphs of functions: graphs of several special functions, the Vertical
Line Test

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 Functions

Why functions?
In daily life, it is common to have one quantity depends upon another.

Example

your height depends on your age;

the temperature depends on the date;

the cost of mailing a package depends on its weight.

In mathematics, we express these dependencies as functions. So

height is a function of age;

temperature is a function of date;

the cost of mailing a package is a function of its weight.

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 Functions

Denition of functions

A function f : A −→ B is a rule that assigns each element x in a set A to exactly one

element, called f (x), in B. (We read f (x) as  f of x or  f at x.)

In notation, we write

f : A −→ B
x 7−→ f (x)

A is called the domain of f, also

denoted by Dom(f) or D(f ).

B is called the codomain of f, also

denoted by CoDom(f).

The range of f, denoted by R(f ), is dened by

R(f ) = {f (x) ∈ B : x ∈ A}.

It follows that R(f ) ⊆ B . It is also possible that R(f ) 6= B (give an example).

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 Functions

Another way to write a function is y = f (x).

Here x is called the independent variable and y the dependent variable.

We can also think of a function as a machine:

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 Functions

Example Which of the following is a function?

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 Functions

Example A function f is dened by

f (x) = x2 + 4.

(a) Express in words how f acts on the input x to produce the output f (x).
√
(b) Evaluate f (3), f (−2) and f ( 5).
(c) Find the domain and range of f.
(d) Draw a machine diagram of f.

Solution

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 Functions

Piecewise dened functions

A function dened by several formulas on dierent intervals is called a

piecewise dened function.

Example
(a)
(
3 − x, x ≤ 0,
y = f (x) =
x2 , x>0
is a piecewise dened function.
We have
f (−1) = 3 − (−1) = 4

f (1) = 12 = 1
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 Functions

(b) 
 x,

 x ≤ −10,
y = g(x) = 2
|x − 3|, −10 < x < 10,

 ex ,

x ≥ 10
is a piecewise dened function.

We have

g(−10) = −10

g(0) = |02 − 3| = 3

g(10) = e10

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 Functions

Domain of a function

Recall that the domain of a function is the set of all inputs of that function.

The domain of a function may be stated explicitly.

Example

(a) f (x) = x2 − 10x, where −3 ≤ x ≤ 3. Then D(f ) = [−3, 3].

(b) f : R −→ R : x 7−→ ex . Then D(f ) = R.

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 Functions

The domain of a function may not be stated explicitly. In this case, we implicitly

understand that the domain is the largest possible domain for that function. That

is,

D(f ) = {x ∈ R : f (x) is well-dened}.

Example

1
(a) f (x) = x−4

D(f ) = {x ∈ R : f (x) is well-dened} = {x ∈ R : x 6= 4} = R \ {4}.

√
(b) g(x) = x

D(g) = {x ∈ R : g(x) is well-dened} = {x ∈ R : x ≥ 0} = [0, ∞).

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 Functions

Exercise Find the domain of each function.

1
(a) f (x) =
x2 − x

√
(b) g(x) = 9 − x2

t
(c) h(t) = √ .
t+1

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 Graphs of functions

Graph of a function

Let f be a function with domain A.

Then the graph of f is the set of ordered pair

{(x, f (x)) : x ∈ A}.

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 Graphs of functions

Some special functions and their graphs

Linear function
y
y = mx + b,
y = 2x + 1
where m and b are constants.

x
For example, y = 2x + 1

The graph of a linear function is a straight line.

y
A special case is when m=0 (the slope is 0).

In this case, y=b which is called a constant function.

y=b
The graph of a constant function is a horizontal line.
x

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 Graphs of functions

Power function

y = xn ,
where n is a natural number.

For example, y = x2 , y = x3 , ...

y

y = x2
y = x3

x x

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 Graphs of functions

Root function
√
n
y= x,
where n is a natural number.

√ √
For example, y= x, y = 3 x, ...

√
y= x

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 Graphs of functions

Piecewise function

For example,
(
x2 , x ≤ 1,
y=
2x + 1, x>1

y = 2x + 1

y = x2

x
1

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 Graphs of functions

Absolute value function

y = |f (x)|.

For example, y = |x|, y = |x2 − 3|, ...

y
y

y = |x|

y = |x2 − 3|

√ √ x
− 3 3

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 Graphs of functions

Other functions

For example,

y = f (x) = x5 − 10x3 + x2 + 27.

It is too hard to plot this function by hand.

So use a graphic calculator instead!

(Plot generated by MATLAB)

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 Graphs of functions

The vertical line test

The vertical line test A curve in the coordinate plane is a graph of a function if and

only if no vertical line intersects the curve more than once.

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 Graphs of functions

Example Use The Vertical Line Test to check whether each of the following is a graph

of a function.

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 Graphs of functions

Which equation represents a function?

Given a particular equation involving x and y, say

x2 + y 2 = 1.

To see whether this equation represents a function or not, we solve for y in terms of x.

If there is exactly one value for y corresponding to each value of x, y is a function in x.

Note that this is the same as saying the graph of the equation satises The Vertical Line

Test.

If there are more than one value for y corresponding to each value of x, y is not a

function in x.

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 Graphs of functions

Back to the equation

x2 + y 2 = 1.

Now we solve for y in terms of x:

p
y 2 = 1 − x2 ⇐⇒ y = ± 1 − x2 .

So for example, if x = 0, then there are 2 corresponding values for y: y = 1 and y = −1.

So in this case, y is not a function of x.

y
x2 + y 2 = 1

This is expected since the graph of x2 + y 2 = 1 is a

x
circle (centered at the origin and of radius 1).

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 Graphs of functions

Exercise Determine if each of the following equations represents a function.

(a) y − x2 = 10

(b) y 2 − x = 10

x2 y2
(c) + =1
4 25

(d) (y + 1)3 + x − 2 = 0

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