Activity
The function gives the number of people, in millions, who own a smartphone, years after the year 2000. So, any value for which is negative would represent the number of years before 2000.
1. What does this equation tell us about smartphone ownership?
Compare your answer:
In 2017, about 2,320 million or 2.32 billion people owned a smartphone.
2. What does this equation tell us about smartphone ownership?
Compare your answer:
No one owned a smartphone in 1990, 10 years before 2000.
3. Use function notation to represent this statement.
In 2010, the number of people who owned a smartphone was 296,600,000.
Compare your answer:
4. Use function notation to represent this statement.
In 2015, about 1.86 billion people owned a smartphone.
Compare your answer:
5. Mai is curious about the value of in .
What would the value of tell Mai about the situation?
Compare your answer:
The year when 1 billion people owned a smartphone (adding the value of to 2000 gives the year)
6. Mai is curious about the value of in .
Is 4 a possible value of here?
Compare your answer:
No. corresponds to the year 2004. At that time, the number of smartphone owners should be below that of 2010, which was 296 million.
7. Use your own graph paper to sketch a graph of the function. Your graph should go through these four points: , , , and .
Compare your answer:
Video: Understanding Equations in Function Notation
Watch the following video to learn more about reading equations in function notation.
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Extending Your Thinking
What can you say about the value or values of when ?
Compare your answer:
There is not enough information to know exactly when 1 billion (1,000 million) people owned a smartphone, but there is likely only one value of when , and that value is somewhere between 10 and 15. This is because the number of smartphone users was less than a billion in 2010 and more than a billion in 2015.
Self Check
Additional Resources
Interpreting Equations in Function Notation
What does a statement like mean?
On its own, only tells us that when takes 3 as its input, its output is 12.
If we know what quantities the input and output represent, however, we can learn much more about the situation that the function represents.
If function gives the perimeter of a square whose side length is and both measurements are in inches, then we can interpret to mean “a square whose side length is 3 inches has a perimeter of 12 inches.”
We can also interpret statements like to mean “a square with side length has a perimeter of 32 inches,” which then allows us to reason that must be 8 inches and to write .
If function gives the number of blog subscribers, in thousands, months after a blogger started publishing online, then means “3 months after a blogger started publishing online, the blog has 12,000 subscribers.”
It is important to pay attention to the units of measurement when analyzing a function. Otherwise, we might mistake what is happening in the situation. If we miss that is measured in thousands, we might misinterpret to mean “there are 36 blog subscribers after months,” while it actually means “after 36 months, there are thousands of blog subscribers.”
Try it
Try It: Interpret Equations in Function Notation
If a function gives the area of a square, with a side length centimeters, then what does the function mean?
Compare your answer:
Since gives the area and 8 is the input, a square with side length of 8 centimeters has an area of 64 .