Dependent and Independent Variables
Variables are further distinguished as being either a dependent variable or an independent variable. Independent variables are regarded as inputs to a system and may take on different values freely. Dependent variables are those values that change as a consequence of changes in other values in the system.
When one value is completely determined by another or several others, then it is called a function of the other value or values. In this case the value of the function is a dependent variable and the other values are independent variables. The notation f(x) is used for the value of the function f with x representing the independent variable. Similarly, notation such as f(x, y, z) may be used when there are several independent variables that are not the same.
Read more about this topic: Variable (mathematics)
Famous quotes containing the words dependent, independent and/or variables:
“Almost everywhere we find . . . the use of various coercive measures, to rid ourselves as quickly as possible of the child within us—i.e., the weak, helpless, dependent creature—in order to become an independent competent adult deserving of respect. When we reencounter this creature in our children, we persecute it with the same measures once used in ourselves.”
—Alice Miller (20th century)
“I have defeated them all.... I was left with some money to battle with the world when quite young, and at the present time have much to feel proud of.... The Lord gave me talent, and I know I have done good with it.... For my brains have made me quite independent and without the help of any man.”
—Harriet A. Brown, U.S. inventor and educator. As quoted in Feminine Ingenuity, ch. 8, by Anne L. MacDonald (1992)
“The variables are surprisingly few.... One can whip or be whipped; one can eat excrement or quaff urine; mouth and private part can be meet in this or that commerce. After which there is the gray of morning and the sour knowledge that things have remained fairly generally the same since man first met goat and woman.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)