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Functions: Metaphors, Images and Representations

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Please read this post at abstractmath.org. I originally posted the document here but some of the diagrams would not render, and I haven’t been able to figure out why. Sorry for having to redirect.

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The Mathematical Definition of Function

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Introduction

This post is a completely rewritten version of the abstractmath article on the definition of function. Like every part of abstractmath, the chapter on functions is designed to get you started thinking about functions. It is no way complete. Wikipedia has much more complete coverage of mathematical functions, but be aware that the coverage is scattered over many articles.

The concept of function in mathematics is as important as any mathematical idea. The mathematician’s concept of function includes the kinds of functions you studied in calculus but is much more abstract and general. If you are new to abstract math you need to know:

  • The precise meaning of the word “function” and other concepts associated with functions. That’s what this section is about.
  • Notation and terminology for functions. (That will be a separate section of abstractmath.org which I will post soon.)
  • The many different kinds of functions there are. (See Examples of Functions in abmath).
  • The many ways mathematicians think about functions. The abmath article Images and Metaphors for Functions is a stub for this.

I will use two running examples throughout this discussion:

  • {F} is the function defined on the set {\left\{1,\,2,3,6 \right\}} as follows: {F(1)=3,\,\,\,F(2)=3,\,\,\,F(3)=2,\,\,\,F(6)=1}. This is a function defined on a finite set by explicitly naming each value.
  • {G} is the real-valued function defined by the formula {G(x)={{x}^{2}}+2x+5}.

Specification of function

We start by giving a specification of “function”. (See the abstractmath article on specification.) After that, we get into the technicalities of the definitions of the general concept of function.

Specification: A function {f} is a mathematical object which determines and is completely determined bythe following data:

  • {f} has a domain, which is a set. The domain may be denoted by {\text{dom }f}.
  • {f} has a codomain, which is also a set and may be denoted by {\text{cod }f}.
  • For each element {a} of the domain of {f}, {f} has a value at {a}, denoted by {f(a)}.
  • The value of {f} at {a} is completely determined by {a} and {f} .
  • The value of {f} at {a} must be an element of the codomain of {f}.

The operation of finding {f(a)} given {f} and {a} is called evaluation.

Examples

  • The definition above of the finite function {F} specifies that the domain is the set {\left\{1,\,2,\,3,\,6 \right\}}. The value of {F} at each element of the domain is given explicitly. The value at 3, for example, is 2, because the definition says that {F(2) = 3}. The codomain of {F} is not specified, but must include the set {\{1,2,3\}}.
  • The definition of {G} above gives the value at each element of the domain by a formula. The value at 3, for example, is {G(3)=3^2+2\cdot3+5=20}. The definition does not specify the domain or the codomain. The convention in the case of functions defined on the real numbers by a formula is to take the domain to be all real numbers at which the formula is defined. In this case, that is every real number, so the domain is {{\mathbb R}}. The codomain must include all real numbers greater than or equal to 4. (Why?)

Comment: The formula above that defines the function G in fact defines a function of complex numbers (even quaternions).

Definition of function

In the nineteenth century, mathematicians realized that it was necessary for some purposes (particularly harmonic analysis) to give a mathematical definition of the concept of function. A stricter version of this definition turned out to be necessary in algebraic topology and other fields, and that is the one I give here.

To state this definition we need a preliminary idea.

The functional property

A set R of ordered pairs has the functional property if two pairs in R with the same first coordinate have to have the same second coordinate (which means they are the same pair).

Examples

  • The set {\{(1,2), (2,4), (3,2), (5,8)\}} has the functional property, since no two different pairs have the same first coordinate. It is true that two of them have the same second coordinate, but that is irrelevant.
  • The set {\{(1,2), (2,4), (3,2), (2,8)\}} does not have the functional property. There are two different pairs with first coordinate 2.
  • The graphs of functions in beginning calculus have the functional property.
  • The empty set {\emptyset} has the functional property .

Example: Graph of a function defined by a formula

The graph of the function {G} given above has the functional property. The graph is the set

\displaystyle \left\{ (x,{{x}^{2}}+2x+5)\,\mathsf{|}\,x\in {\mathbb R} \right\}.

If you repeatedly plug in one real number over and over, you get out the same real number every time. Example:

  • if {x = 0}, then {{{x}^{2}}+2x+5=5}.  You get 5 every time you plug in 0.
  • if {x = 1}, then {{{x}^{2}}+2x+5=8}.
  • if {x =-2}, then {{{x}^{2}}+2x+5=5}.

This set has the functional property because if {x} is any real number, the formula {{{x}^{2}}+2x+5} defines a specific real number. (This description of the graph implicitly assumes that {\text{dom } G={\mathbb R}}.)  No other pair whose first coordinate is {-2} is in the graph of {G}, only {(-2, 5)}. That is because when you plug {-2} into the formula {{{x}^{2}}+2x+5}, you get {5} every time. Of course, {(0, 5)} is in the graph, but that does not contradict the functional property. {(0, 5)} and {(-2, 5)} have the same second coordinate, but that is OK.

How to think about the functional property

The point of the functional property is that for any pair in the set of ordered pairs, the first coordinate determines what the second one is. That’s why you can write “{G(x)}” for any {x } in the domain of {G} and not be ambiguous.

Mathematical definition of function

A function{f} is a mathematical structure consisting of the following objects:

  • A set called the domain of {f}, denoted by {\text{dom } f}.
  • A set called the codomain of {f}, denoted by {\text{cod } f}.
  • A set of ordered pairs called the graph of { f}, with the following properties:
    • {\text{dom } f} is the set of all first coordinates of pairs in the graph of {f}.
    • Every second coordinate of a pair in the graph of {f} is in {\text{cod } f} (but {\text{cod } f} may contain other elements).
    • The graph of {f} has the functional property. Using arrow notation, this implies that {f:A\rightarrow B}.

Examples

  • Let {F} have graph {\{(1,2), (2,4), (3,2), (5,8)\}} and define {A = \{1, 2, 3, 5\}} and {B = \{2, 4, 8\}}. Then {F:A\rightarrow B} is a function.
  • Let {G} have graph {\{(1,2), (2,4), (3,2), (5,8)\}} (same as above), and define {A = \{1, 2, 3, 5\}} and {C = \{2, 4, 8, 9, 11, \pi, 3/2\}}. Then {G:A\rightarrow C} is a (admittedly ridiculous) function. Note that all the second coordinates of the graph are in {C}, along with a bunch of miscellaneous suspicious characters that are not second coordinates of pairs in the graph.
  • Let {H} have graph {\{(1,2), (2,4), (3,2), (5,8)\}}. Then {H:A\rightarrow {\mathbb R}} is a function.

According to the definition of function, {F}, {G} and {H} are three different functions.

Identity and inclusion

Suppose we have two sets A and B with {A\subseteq B}.

  • The identity function on A is the function {{{\text{id}}_{A}}:A\rightarrow A} defined by {{{\text{id}}_{A}}(x)=x} for all{x\in A}. (Many authors call it {{{1}_{A}}}).
  • The inclusion function from A to B is the function {i:A\rightarrow B} defined by {i(x)=x} for all {x\in A}. Note that there is a different function for each pair of sets A and B for which {A\subseteq B}. Some authors call it {{{i}_{A,\,B}}} or {\text{in}{{\text{c}}_{A,\,B}}}.

Remark The identity function and an inclusion function for the same set A have exactly the same graph, namely {\left\{ (a,a)|a\in A \right\}}.

Graphs and functions

  • If {f} is a function, the domain of {f} is the set of first coordinates of all the pairs in {f}.
  • If {x\in \text{dom } f}, then {f(x)} is the second coordinate of the only ordered pair in {f} whose first coordinate is {x}.

Examples

The set {\{(1,2), (2,4), (3,2), (5,8)\}} has the functional property, so it is the graph of a function. Call the function {H}. Then its domain is {\{1,2,3,5\}} and {H(1) = 2} and {H(2) = 4}. {H(4)} is not defined because there is no ordered pair in H beginning with {4} (hence {4} is not in {\text{dom } H}.)

I showed above that the graph of the function {G}, ordinarily described as “the function {G(x)={{x}^{2}}+2x+5}”, has the functional property. The specification of function requires that we say what the domain is and what the value is at each point. These two facts are determined by the graph.

Other definitions of function

Because of the examples above, many authors define a function as a graph with the functional property. Now, the graph of a function {G} may be denoted by {\Gamma(G)}.  This is an older, less strict definition of function that doesn’t work correctly with the concepts of algebraic topology, category theory, and some other branches of mathematics.

For this less strict definition of function, {G=\Gamma(G)}, which causes a clash of our mental images of “graph” and “function”. In every important way except the less-strict definition, they ARE different!

A definition is a device for making the meaning of math technical terms precise. When a mathematician think of “function” they think of many aspects of functions, such as a map of one shape into another, a graph in the real plane, a computational process, a renaming, and so on. One of the ways of thinking of a function is to think about its graph. That happens to be the best way to define the concept of function.  (It is the less strict definition and it is a necessary concept in the modern definition given here.)

The occurrence of the graph in either definition doesn’t make thinking of a function in terms of its graph the most important way of visualizing  it. I don’t think it is even in the top three.

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Function as map

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This is a first draft of an article to eventually appear in abstractmath.

Images and metaphors

To explain a math concept, you need to explain how mathematicians think about the concept. This is what in abstractmath I call the images and metaphors carried by the concept. Of course you have to give the precise definition of the concept and basic theorems about it. But without the images and metaphors most students, not to mention mathematicians from a different field, will find it hard to prove much more than some immediate consequences of the definition. Nor will they have much sense of the place of the concept in math and applications.

Teachers will often explain the images and metaphors with handwaving and pictures in a fairly vague way. That is good to start with, but it’s important to get more precise about the images and metaphors. That’s because images and metaphors are often not quite a good fit for the concept — they may suggest things that are false and not suggest things that are true. For example, if a set is a container, why isn’t the element-of relation transitive? (A coin in a coinpurse in your pocket is a coin in your pocket.)

“A metaphor is a useful way to think about something, but it is not the same thing as the same thing.” (I think I stole that from the Economist.) Here, I am going to get precise with the notion that a function is a map. I am acting like a mathematician in “getting precise”, but I am getting precise about a metaphor, not about a mathematical object.

A function is a map

A map (ordinary paper map) of Minnesota has the property that each point on the paper represents a point in the state of Minnesota. This map can be represented as a mathematical function from a subset of a 2-sphere to {{\mathbb R}^2}. The function is a mathematical idealization of the relation between the state and the piece of paper, analogous to the mathematical description of the flight of a rocket ship as a function from {{\mathbb R}} to {{\mathbb R}^3}.

The Minnesota map-as-function is probably continuous and differentiable, and as is well known it can be angle preserving or area preserving but not both.

So you can say there is a point on the paper that represents the location of the statue of Paul Bunyan in Bemidji. There is a set of points that represents the part of the Mississippi River that lies in Minnesota. And so on.

A function has an image. If you think about it you will realize that the image is just a certain portion of the piece of paper. Knowing that a particular point on the paper is in the image of the function is not the information contained in what we call “this map of Minnesota”.

This yields what I consider a basic insight about function-as-map:  The map contains the information about the preimage of each point on the paper map. So:

The map in the sense of a “map of Minnesota” is represented by the whole function, not merely by the image.

I think that is the essence of the metaphor that a function is a map. And I don’t think newbies in abstractmath always understand that relationship.

A morphism is a map

The preceding discussion doesn’t really represent how we think of a paper map of Minnesota. We don’t think in terms of points at all. What we see are marks on the map showing where some particular things are. If it is a road map it has marks showing a lot of roads, a lot of towns, and maybe county boundaries. If it is a topographical map it will show level curves showing elevation. So a paper map of a state should be represented by a structure preserving map, a morphism. Road maps preserve some structure, topographical maps preserve other structure.

The things we call “maps” in math are usually morphisms. For example, you could say that every simple closed curve in the plane is an equivalence class of maps from the unit circle to the plane. Here equivalence class meaning forget the parametrization.

The very fact that I have to mention forgetting the parametrization is that the commonest mathematical way to talk about morphisms is as point-to-point maps with certain properties. But we think about a simple closed curve in the plane as just a distorted circle. The point-to-point correspondence doesn’t matter. So this example is really talking about a morphism as a shape-preserving map. Mathematicians introduced points into talking about preserving shapes in the nineteenth century and we are so used to doing that that we think we have to have points for all maps.

Not that points aren’t useful. But I am analyzing the metaphor here, not the technical side of the math.

Groups are functors

People who don’t do category theory think the idea of a mathematical structure as a functor is weird. From the point of view of the preceding discussion, a particular group is a functor from the generic group to some category. (The target category is Set if the group is discrete, Top if it is a topological group, and so on.)

The generic group is a group in a category called its theory or sketch that is just big enough to let it be a group. If the theory is the category with finite products that is just big enough then it is the Lawvere theory of the group. If it is a topos that is just big enough then it is the classifying topos of groups. The theory in this sense is equivalent to some theory in the sense of string-based logic, for example the signature-with-axioms (equational theory) or the first order theory of groups. Johnstone’s Elephant book is the best place to find the translation between these ideas.

A particular group is represented by a finite-limit-preserving functor on the algebraic theory, or by a logical functor on the classifying topos, and so on; constructions which bring with them the right concept of group homomorphisms as well (they will be any natural transformations).

The way we talk about groups mimics the way we talk about maps. We look at the symmetric group on five letters and say its multiplication is noncommutative. “Its multiplication” tells us that when we talk about this group we are talking about the functor, not just the values of the functor on objects. We use the same symbols of juxtaposition for multiplication in any group, “{1}” or “{e}” for the identity, “{a^{-1}}” for the inverse of {a}, and so on. That is because we are really talking about the multiplication, identity and inverse function in the generic group — they really are the same for all groups. That is because a group is not its underlying set, it is a functor. Just like the map of Minnesota “is” the whole function from the state to the paper, not just the image of the function.

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