Chapter 1 : Review Section 1.

1 : Functions

1.1 Functions

In this section we’re going to make sure that you’re familiar with functions and function notation.
Both will appear in almost every section in a Calculus class so you will need to be able to deal with
them.
First, what exactly is a function? The simplest definition is an equation will be a function if, for any
x in the domain of the equation (the domain is all the x’s that can be plugged into the equation),
the equation will yield exactly one value of y when we evaluate the equation at a specific x.
This is usually easier to understand with an example.

Example 1
Determine if each of the following are functions.
(a) y = x2 + 1

(b) y 2 = x + 1

Solution
(a) y = x2 + 1
This first one is a function. Given an x, there is only one way to square it and then add
1 to the result. So, no matter what value of x you put into the equation, there is only
one possible value of y when we evaluate the equation at that value of x.

(b) y 2 = x + 1
The only difference between this equation and the first is that we moved the exponent
off the x and onto the y. This small change is all that is required, in this case, to change
the equation from a function to something that isn’t a function.
To see that this isn’t a function is fairly simple. Choose a value of x, say x = 3 and
plug this into the equation.
y2 = 3 + 1 = 4
Now, there are two possible values of y that we could use here. We could use y = 2
or y = −2. Since there are two possible values of y that we get from a single x this
equation isn’t a function.
Note that this only needs to be the case for a single value of x to make an equation not
be a function. For instance, we could have used x = −1 and in this case, we would
get a single y (y = 0). However, because of what happens at x = 3 this equation will
not be a function.

© Paul Dawkins Calculus –2–

Chapter 1 : Review Section 1.1 : Functions

Next, we need to take a quick look at function notation. Function notation is nothing more than a
fancy way of writing the y in a function that will allow us to simplify notation and some of our work
a little.
Let’s take a look at the following function.

y = 2x2 − 5x + 3

Using function notation, we can write this as any of the following.

f (x) = 2x2 − 5x + 3 g (x) = 2x2 − 5x + 3

h (x) = 2x2 − 5x + 3 R (x) = 2x2 − 5x + 3
w (x) = 2x2 − 5x + 3 y (x) = 2x2 − 5x + 3
..
.

Recall that this is NOT a letter times x, this is just a fancy way of writing y.
So, why is this useful? Well let’s take the function above and let’s get the value of the function
at x = −3. Using function notation we represent the value of the function at x = −3 as f (−3).
Function notation gives us a nice compact way of representing function values.
Now, how do we actually evaluate the function? That’s really simple. Everywhere we see an x on
the right side we will substitute whatever is in the parenthesis on the left side. For our function this
gives,

f (−3) = 2(−3)2 − 5 (−3) + 3

= 2 (9) + 15 + 3
= 36

Let’s take a look at some more function evaluation.

Example 2
Given f (x) = −x2 + 6x − 11 find each of the following.
(a) f (2)

(b) f (−10)

(c) f (t)

(d) f (t − 3)

(e) f (x − 3)

(f) f (4x − 1)

© Paul Dawkins Calculus –3–

Chapter 1 : Review Section 1.1 : Functions

Solution
(a) f (2)
f (2) = −(2)2 + 6(2) − 11 = −3

(b) f (−10)
f (−10) = −(−10)2 + 6 (−10) − 11 = −100 − 60 − 11 = −171
Be careful when squaring negative numbers!

(c) f (t)
f (t) = −t2 + 6t − 11
Remember that we substitute for the x’s WHATEVER is in the parenthesis on the left.
Often this will be something other than a number. So, in this case we put t’s in for all
the x’s on the left.

(d) f (t − 3)
f (t − 3) = −(t − 3)2 + 6 (t − 3) − 11 = −t2 + 12t − 38
Often instead of evaluating functions at numbers or single letters we will have some
fairly complex evaluations so make sure that you can do these kinds of evaluations.

(e) f (x − 3)
f (x − 3) = −(x − 3)2 + 6 (x − 3) − 11 = −x2 + 12x − 38
The only difference between this one and the previous one is that we changed the t
to an x. Other than that, there is absolutely no difference between the two! Don’t get
excited if an x appears inside the parenthesis on the left.

(f) f (4x − 1)

f (4x − 1) = −(4x − 1)2 + 6 (4x − 1) − 11 = −16x2 + 32x − 18

This one is not much different from the previous part. All we did was change the
equation that we were plugging into the function.

All throughout a calculus course we will be finding roots of functions. A root of a function is nothing
more than a number for which the function is zero. In other words, finding the roots of a function,
g (x), is equivalent to solving
g (x) = 0

© Paul Dawkins Calculus –4–

Chapter 1 : Review Section 1.1 : Functions

Example 3
Determine all the roots of f (t) = 9t3 − 18t2 + 6t

Solution
So, we will need to solve,
9t3 − 18t2 + 6t = 0
First, we should factor the equation as much as possible. Doing this gives,

3t 3t2 − 6t + 2 = 0

Next recall that if a product of two things are zero then one (or both) of them had to be zero.
This means that,
3t = 0 OR 3t2 − 6t + 2 = 0
From the first it’s clear that one of the roots must then be t = 0. To get the remaining roots
we will need to use the quadratic formula on the second equation. Doing this gives,
q
− (−6) ± (−6)2 − 4 (3) (2)
t=
2 (3)
√
6 ± 12
=
6p
6 ± (4) (3)
=
√6
6±2 3
=
6√
3± 3
=
3
1√ 1
=1± 3=1± √
3 3
In order to remind you how to simplify radicals we gave several forms of the answer.
To complete the problem, here is a complete list of all the roots of this function.
√ √
3+ 3 3− 3
t = 0, t = , t=
3 3
Note we didn’t use the final form for the roots from the quadratic. This is usually where
we’ll stop with the simplification for these kinds of roots. Also note that, for the sake of the
practice, we broke up the compact form for the two roots of the quadratic. You will need to
be able to do this so make sure that you can.

This example had a couple of points other than finding roots of functions.

© Paul Dawkins Calculus –5–

Chapter 1 : Review Section 1.1 : Functions

The first was to remind you of the quadratic formula. This won’t be the last time that you’ll need it
in this class.
The second was to get you used to seeing “messy” answers. In fact, the answers in the above
example are not really all that messy. However, most students come out of an Algebra class very
used to seeing only integers and the occasional “nice” fraction as answers.
So, here is fair warning. In this class I often will intentionally make the answers look “messy” just
to get you out of the habit of always expecting “nice” answers. In “real life” (whatever that is) the
answer is rarely a simple integer such as two. In most problems the answer will be a decimal that
came about from a messy fraction and/or an answer that involved radicals.
One of the more important ideas about functions is that of the domain and range of a function. In
simplest terms the domain of a function is the set of all values that can be plugged into a function
and have the function exist and have a real number for a value. So, for the domain we need to
avoid division by zero, square roots of negative numbers, logarithms of zero and logarithms of
negative numbers (if not familiar with logarithms we’ll take a look at them a little later), etc. The
range of a function is simply the set of all possible values that a function can take.
Let’s find the domain and range of a few functions.

Example 4
Find the domain and range of each of the following functions.
(a) f (x) = 5x − 3

√
(b) g (t) = 4 − 7t

(c) h (x) = −2x2 + 12x + 5

(d) f (z) = |z − 6| − 3

(e) g (x) = 8

Solution
(a) f (x) = 5x − 3
We know that this is a line and that it’s not a horizontal line (because the slope is 5
and not zero...). This means that this function can take on any value and so the range
is all real numbers. Using “mathematical” notation this is,

Range : (−∞, ∞)

This is more generally a polynomial and we know that we can plug any value into a

© Paul Dawkins Calculus –6–

Chapter 1 : Review Section 1.1 : Functions

polynomial and so the domain in this case is also all real numbers or,

Domain : −∞ < x < ∞ or (−∞, ∞)

√
(b) g (t) = 4 − 7t
This is a square root and we know that square roots are always positive or zero. We
know then that the range will be,

Range : [0, ∞)

For the domain we have a little bit of work to do, but not much. We need to make sure
that we don’t take square roots of any negative numbers, so we need to require that,

4 − 7t ≥ 0
4 ≥ 7t
4 4
≥t ⇒ t≤
7 7
The domain is then,  
4 4
Domain : t ≤ or −∞,
7 7

(c) h (x) = −2x2 + 12x + 5

Here we have a quadratic, which is a polynomial, so we again know that the domain
is all real numbers or,

Domain : −∞ < x < ∞ or (−∞, ∞)

In this case the range requires a little bit of work. From an Algebra class we know that
the graph of this will be a parabola that opens down (because the coefficient of the x2
is negative) and so the vertex will be the highest point on the graph. If we know the
vertex we can then get the range. The vertex is then,
12
x=− =3 y = h (3) = −2(3)2 + 12 (3) + 5 = 23 ⇒ (3, 23)
2 (−2)

So, as discussed, we know that this will be the highest point on the graph or the largest
value of the function and the parabola will take all values less than this, so the range
is then,
Range : (−∞, 23]

© Paul Dawkins Calculus –7–

Chapter 1 : Review Section 1.1 : Functions

(d) f (z) = |z − 6| − 3
This function contains an absolute value and we know that absolute value will be either
positive or zero. In this case the absolute value will be zero if z = 6 and so the absolute
value portion of this function will always be greater than or equal to zero. We are
subtracting 3 from the absolute value portion and so we then know that the range will
be,
Range : [−3, ∞)
We can plug any value into an absolute value and so the domain is once again all real
numbers or,
Domain : −∞ < z < ∞ or (−∞, ∞)

(e) g (x) = 8
This function may seem a little tricky at first but is actually the easiest one in this set
of examples. This is a constant function and so any value of x that we plug into the
function will yield a value of 8. This means that the range is a single value or,

Range : 8

The domain is all real numbers,

Domain : −∞ < x < ∞ or (−∞, ∞)

In general, determining the range of a function can be somewhat difficult. As long as we restrict
ourselves down to “simple” functions, some of which we looked at in the previous example, finding
the range is not too bad, but for most functions it can be a difficult process.
Because of the difficulty in finding the range for a lot of functions we had to keep those in the
previous set somewhat simple, which also meant that we couldn’t really look at some of the more
complicated domain examples that are liable to be important in a Calculus course. So, let’s take a
look at another set of functions only this time we’ll just look for the domain.

Example 5
Find the domain of each of the following functions.
x−4
(a) f (x) =
x2 − 2x − 15
√
(b) g (t) = 6 + t − t2

x
(c) h (x) = √
x2 −9

© Paul Dawkins Calculus –8–