In mathematics, an inverse function is a function that undoes another function: If an input x into the function ƒ produces an output y, then putting y into the inverse function g produces the output x, and vice versa. i.e., ƒ(x)=y, and g(y)=x. More directly, g(ƒ(x))=x, meaning g(x) composed with ƒ(x) leaves x unchanged.
A function ƒ that has an inverse is called invertible; the inverse function is then uniquely determined by ƒ and is denoted by ƒ−1 (read f inverse, not to be confused with exponentiation).
Read more about Inverse Function: Definitions, Inverses in Calculus, Real-world Examples
Famous quotes containing the words inverse and/or function:
“Yet time and space are but inverse measures of the force of the soul. The spirit sports with time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Philosophical questions are not by their nature insoluble. They are, indeed, radically different from scientific questions, because they concern the implications and other interrelations of ideas, not the order of physical events; their answers are interpretations instead of factual reports, and their function is to increase not our knowledge of nature, but our understanding of what we know.”
—Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985)