In mathematics, a rational function is any function which can be written as the ratio of two polynomial functions. Neither the coefficients of the polynomials nor the values taken by the function are necessarily rational numbers.
Read more about Rational Function: Definitions, Examples, Taylor Series, Abstract Algebra and Geometric Notion, Applications
Famous quotes containing the words rational and/or function:
“I often wish for the end of the wretched remnant of my life; and that wish is a rational one; but then the innate principle of self-preservation, wisely implanted in our natures, for obvious purposes, opposes that wish, and makes us endeavour to spin out our thread as long as we can, however decayed and rotten it may be.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“As a medium of exchange,... worrying regulates intimacy, and it is often an appropriate response to ordinary demands that begin to feel excessive. But from a modernized Freudian view, worrying—as a reflex response to demand—never puts the self or the objects of its interest into question, and that is precisely its function in psychic life. It domesticates self-doubt.”
—Adam Phillips, British child psychoanalyst. “Worrying and Its Discontents,” in On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored, p. 58, Harvard University Press (1993)