SAO Maths Primer

When plotting functions we usually plot the input number or variable in the horizontal axis (x axis), and the value returned by the function in the vertical axis (y axis). For the example above f(x) = x² :

Multi-variable function

A function can depend on more than one variable, for example f( x, y, z ) is a function   f , which requires three input parameters ( x , y , z ) to produce a value. An example of a multi-variable function is the expression for Newton's Law of gravitation that gives the force between two bodies of masses m₁ and m₂ separated by a distance r :

This is a function F( m₁ , m₂ , r ) where you need three input parameters m₁ , m₂ and r to calculate the value for the force F .

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