ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews several elementary mathematical concepts. It defines a function, and examines how a function can be used to represent one- and two-dimensional data. The chapter introduces two functions, the step function and the delta functions. A single valued function has one and only one value of the dependent variable for each value of the independent variable. A graph is one way to represent the values of a function. A second method is to construct a mathematical relationship between the independent variable and the value of the function. The two-dimensional function assigns a value, the picture intensity, to each point within the picture. The most common way of drawing a vector is an arrow from the origin to a point. Vectors with two components can be used to represent a point in a two-dimensional space. The integral operation applied to continuous functions is analogous to the summation operation on discrete functions.
