

” The two sides of the equation have the same mathematical meaning and are equal. We read the left-hand side as “ f “ f composed with g g at x ,” x ,” and the right-hand side as “ f “ f of g g of x. If w ( y ) w ( y ) is the wife’s income and h ( y ) h ( y ) is the husband’s income in year y, y, and we want T T to represent the total income, then we can define a new function. We want to do this for every year, adding only that year’s incomes and then collecting all the data in a new column. Suppose we need to add two columns of numbers that represent a husband and wife’s separate annual incomes over a period of years, with the result being their total household income. We do this by performing the operations with the function outputs, defining the result as the output of our new function. Another way is to carry out the usual algebraic operations on functions, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Combining Functions Using Algebraic Operationsįunction composition is only one way to combine existing functions. īy combining these two relationships into one function, we have performed function composition, which is the focus of this section.

Then, we could evaluate the cost function at that temperature. For example, we could evaluate T ( 5 ) T ( 5 ) to determine the average daily temperature on the 5th day of the year. Thus, we can evaluate the cost function at the temperature T ( d ). For any given day, Cost = C ( T ( d ) ) Cost = C ( T ( d ) ) means that the cost depends on the temperature, which in turns depends on the day of the year. The function T ( d ) T ( d ) gives the average daily temperature on day d d of the year. The function C ( T ) C ( T ) gives the cost C C of heating a house for a given average daily temperature in T T degrees Celsius.

Using descriptive variables, we can notate these two functions. Notice how we have just defined two relationships: The cost depends on the temperature, and the temperature depends on the day. The cost to heat a house will depend on the average daily temperature, and in turn, the average daily temperature depends on the particular day of the year. Suppose we want to calculate how much it costs to heat a house on a particular day of the year.
