2.8 Historical Note

The word FUNCTION first appears in a Latin manuscript “Methodus tangentium inversa, seu de fuctionibus” written by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) in 1673; Leibnitz used the word in the non-analytical sense. He considered a function in terms of “mathematical job” - the “employee” being just a curve.

On July 5, 1698, Johan Bernoulli, in a letter to Leibnitz, for the first time deliberately assigned a specialised use of the term function in the analytical sense. At the end of that month, Leibnitz replied showing his approval.

Function is found in English in 1779 in Chambers’ Cyclopaedia: “The term function is used in algebra, for an analytical expression any way compounded of a variable quantity, and of numbers, or constant quantities”.

Congratulations! You have completed this chapter. I hope you enjoyed studying this chapter. In case you found any difficulties in this chapter or have any suggestions to improve it, please write to us at ‘blind2Visionary@gmail.com’.

End of Chapter 2 Relation and Functions – NCERT Class 11 Mathematics for blind and visually impaired students.