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Glossary |
When reversing the effect of a function which is expressed in several steps, we must
reverse each individual step, and
the order of the steps.
While you may not have thought of reversing the steps, at first, a concrete example will make this very clear. Think about the process of getting dressed. For the "getting dressed" function, you (without clothes) are the input and the some of the steps are:
put on your socks, then
put on your shoes.
The reverse function, "getting undressed", takes you with clothes as the input, and requires the steps:
take off your shoes, then
take off your socks.
It is clear that, if you tried to do this in the other order it would not work! Aside: It is interesting to note that, while this is now intuitive to you, much of the experimentation that small children perform revolves around learning this basic, mathematical fact!
Go back to Functions and Algebra
| Table of Contents | Send questions or
comments to jwicks@northpark.edu |
Glossary |