Another English/math question...

[VJ]

And another question for the English speaking mathematiciens in here...

I'm looking for the English term of what in Dutch is: 'het verloop van een functie'. The problem is I don't know how to explain which word I'm looking for, but perhaps my ideas might help.
Currently, my guess is it is either the the course of a function or the path of a function.
Is this a correct terminology?

Just as an example : 'the ... of a function is increasing' (of course, one could simply say the function is increasing, but is there a noun that could be used here ?)

Thanks!


Jörg

[Fat Tone]

Trend? Tendency?

[VJ]

Trend and tendecy seem to hint at some asymptotic behaviour...
I'm looking for a word that describes what the function does globally...
(silly, it is so simple if you know the Dutch word... )

Jörg

[Umfriend]

Direction or Development??

[GuchiGuh]

the range of values a function is called "Range" whilst the range of values for which the function is valid is called "domain".
It's not "Limits" I suppose.

In limits we say, " as X tends to infinity, (Function) tends to (some value)"

Can you give more info? is the Fucntion continious? etc.
can you give an example? write out the function and a little graph or something

[Gurm]

Slope. I believe the word you are looking for is "slope".

[Fat Tone]

rate of change?

[Gurm]

rate of change?

Also Known As... slope.

[Fat Tone]

hehe.

[VJ]

Quite a number of ideas, but not what I mean (I know all the words already suggested).

It is more a general 'way the function looks', or 'the way the function values change when moving along the X-axis'.

The story is: I have a fully parametric, quadratic equation (basically, the inversion of the difference of two integrals of lineair functions ). I was thinking of a word describing what I'm looking for (in Dutch: 'verloop') in order to match the shape of my function with known types of quadratic functions For instance in ax^2+bx+c=0, the influence of the sign of 'a' or 'b' or 'c' in the 'overal shape' of a standard quadratic equation; slope is too limited (you can't consider a change of 'c' to yield a change of slope; nor can you say that for two function where a=1 and a=1.1 the slope is similar, yet their 'verloop' is similar). But shape is appearing to be a possible alternative.......

But it is beginning to sound like there is no English word for the Dutch word 'verloop'.


Jörg

[Fat Tone]

outline? shape? envelope?

[Gurm]

Not sounding like anything we know of.

Well, the word to describe the overall shape is "Graph". That might be it.

[GuchiGuh]

Quite a number of ideas, but not what I mean (I know all the words already suggested).

It is more a general 'way the function looks', or 'the way the function values change when moving along the X-axis'.

The story is: I have a fully parametric, quadratic equation (basically, the inversion of the difference of two integrals of lineair functions ). I was thinking of a word describing what I'm looking for (in Dutch: 'verloop') in order to match the shape of my function with known types of quadratic functions For instance in ax^2+bx+c=0, the influence of the sign of 'a' or 'b' or 'c' in the 'overal shape' of a standard quadratic equation; slope is too limited (you can't consider a change of 'c' to yield a change of slope; nor can you say that for two function where a=1 and a=1.1 the slope is similar, yet their 'verloop' is similar). But shape is appearing to be a possible alternative.......

But it is beginning to sound like there is no English word for the Dutch word 'verloop'.


Jörg

I think the word u are digging for is "Polynominal". A polynominal equation has rational co-efficients "a", "b", "c", etc. Polynominals "come" in different sizes. 2nd order polynominal is ax^2+bx+c=0, 3rd order is ax^3+bx^2+cx+d=0, 4th order is ax^4+bx^3+cx^2+dx+e=0 and so on. Usually I identify my relationships as "linear" ,"exponential" or "Polynominal of Nth Degree Order".
If you are talking about shape, then yes, it is shape or "it resembles graphical similarities to an exponential function", for example!

[Wombat]

Sounds like you're describing gradient, concavity, and inflection?

Here's an example graph discussed in English.

http://www.pinkmonkey.com/studyguides/subjects/calc/chap5/c0505c01.asp

[Marshmallowman]

Path sound about right to me.