Ask Me Questions Options

[Christopher]

Has Saffy ever played Legend Of Dragoon?

[Saffy]

I have but not for very long. I mostly watched my brothers play it.

[Christopher]

Did Saffy like it? :D

[Saffy]

It was decent :D Why do you ask?

[Christopher]

It's my favorite game from the PlayStation :D

[Saffy]

Are you playing it now? I don't remember too much from it aside from the game freezing up a lot on some ship dungeon...

[Christopher]

I played it last night, and that's the ghost ship :D

[Saffy]

We went so far as to rent another copy to get past that part. I think we exchanged discs too <3

[Christopher]

The last boss is Melbu Frahma, he was fun to fight. I had Dart, Albert, and Meru in my party.

[Saffy]

Have a picture of the last boss? I want to know if I've seen them fight it :P

[Christopher]

Here's a link: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...%3D10%26hl%3Den

[Saffy]

Nah, they probably didn't then. You don't get much MP in that game do you?

[Stephanie]

=o This topic is rather large.

Anyways. What is the point of a function? In algebra/math terms. Like:
Domain: 3

f(x) = 4x + 1
= 13

Range: All Real Numbers

I wasn't sure exactly how to write it out, but thats a simple example I thought of. We learned it in class yesterday, and I can do the problems they give me, but I think that I'd understand/remember it better if I knew the function of a function. Because we just had numbers to work with, and no word problems to try and guess. D: Did I make any sense?

[Saffy]

Could you try to clarify a bit better? It sounds like you just want me to explain how domain and range work? And how you would figure all that out? :d

[Stephanie]

Just the basic 'Why do we use this?' kind of question for 'function.'

Its probably silly, but I just can't find a use for it.

For example, in one of my questions, it says 'Identify equation as a function or not a function.'

Do you use functions at all besides in high school? D:

And as for figuring it out, its not just an equation, its just finding the range or something. I can't remember. Like how the 'x' is replaced by 3 and you just evaluate that part and get 13, which is the corresponding 'y' in that equation, so you could change x to anything, and y to anything, which makes the ending result of both the domain and the range both all real numbers, doesn't it? DD:

[Saffy]

A function is when there is one value of y for each value of x. That is, y = mx + b would be a function but a circle (x^2 + y^2 = r^2) would not because x can produce two values for y.

You use domain to know which values of x will actually give a value of y. While probably useless to you, if I were to put a bad value of x into a program I was coding the whole thing would crash. The range isn't as useful as it gives the values that y could be. It has a purpose, in code I could use to know how much space to give my variables and to give them a +/- or not, but not as much as the domain, I would say. Yeah, I'm probably just confusing you (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lalasad.gif) It's hard to really say why it would be useful other than no value of y would exist, or rather a 'bad' value of y, if you used an x not allowed.

So for instance, let's do the function: y = 1/x

Well, x cannot be 0 because 1/0 gives you infinity. Thus the domain would be...

D = {x is an element of real such that x is not 0}

I don't have math symbols so I did in text :[

[Toaster Boy]

Will Saffy help me with my precursor to Intergrated Algerbra when I gets it?

[Stephanie]

=o I understood that. Well, except the part of the that says 'is an element of real.' Does that just mean real number? Could we use |R for all real numbers?

So there isn't really a use for functions except in coding? Where you'd only want one y per x? That just seems kinda silly to learn in a required math class. D:

Thanks. Our teacher says it'd just confuse us if we asked the question 'why' but that we'd learn when we take calculus. :[

[Saffy]

Sure, I'll try to help you.

Yes, "is an element of real" means it's a real number. You can just say that for your domain if there are no restrictions. It's mostly fancy math talk. You could say "x E R" with the appropriate E symbol for "is an element of" (see here) and likewise for R wit the double vertical line in front.

(IMG:http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/6/9/a/69a45f1e602cd2b2c2e67e41811fd226.png)

No, functions are very useful. I was just giving you examples in code where the domain was crucial. You'll also find them useful later on in Calculus. And you will learn this in Calculus. You learn a ton in Calculus. It's truly amazing when you see the underlying bits of math.

[Toaster Boy]

How am I getting 50/50 on this? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lalaexdee.gif)