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In mathematics, the term linear function refers to two distinct but related notions: [1] In calculus and related areas, a linear function is a function whose graph is a straight line, that is, a polynomial function of degree zero or one. [2] For distinguishing such a linear function from the other concept, the term affine function is often used ...
A linear function is a polynomial function in which the variable x has degree at most one: [2] = +. Such a function is called linear because its graph, the set of all points (, ()) in the Cartesian plane, is a line. The coefficient a is called the slope of the function and of the line (see below).
The graph of this function is a line with slope and y-intercept. The functions whose graph is a line are generally called linear functions in the context of calculus. However, in linear algebra, a linear function is a function that maps a sum to the sum of the images of the summands.
Comparison of linear, concave, and convex functions when plotted using a linear scale (left) or a log scale (right). In science and engineering , a log–log graph or log–log plot is a two-dimensional graph of numerical data that uses logarithmic scales on both the horizontal and vertical axes.
In mathematics, the term linear is used in two distinct senses for two different properties: . linearity of a function (or mapping);; linearity of a polynomial.; An example of a linear function is the function defined by () = (,) that maps the real line to a line in the Euclidean plane R 2 that passes through the origin.
Since the graph of an affine(*) function is a line, the graph of a piecewise linear function consists of line segments and rays. The x values (in the above example −3, 0, and 3) where the slope changes are typically called breakpoints, changepoints, threshold values or knots.
In three-dimensional Euclidean space, these three planes represent solutions to linear equations, and their intersection represents the set of common solutions: in this case, a unique point. The blue line is the common solution to two of these equations. Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning linear equations such as:
A best-fit line chart (simple linear regression) A parody line graph (1919) by William Addison Dwiggins. Charts often include an overlaid mathematical function depicting the best-fit trend of the scattered data. This layer is referred to as a best-fit layer and the graph containing this layer is often referred to as a line graph.