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Finding inverse functions: quadratic

Sal finds the inverse of f(x)=(x+2)^2+1. Created by Sal Khan.

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  • leaf green style avatar for user Madison
    Why is the minimum negative two? If it were to be, let's say, negative 3, than it would add to be a negative, but once it's squared it will turn positive anyway. Shouldn't the domain be all real numbers?
    (5 votes)
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    • hopper cool style avatar for user Chuck Towle
      Madison,
      As Sal said, the original function was defined to constrain x ≥ -2.
      While he did not have to define the function in this manner, it was necessary to make it possible to find an inverse function.

      The inverse of y=(x-2)+1 would look like this: http://www.khanacademy.org/cs/inverse-of-yx21/1789753003
      But it would not be a function. because it has two y values for every one x value. A function can only have one y value for any x value.

      By constraining the domain of the first function to x≥-2, then the inverse becomes a function because you only use the principal (positive) square root in the inverse function.

      I hope that helps.
      (29 votes)
  • leaf green style avatar for user Nityam
    what are the inverses of logarithmic functions ?
    how do they look like, when represented on cartesian plane ?
    (4 votes)
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  • male robot johnny style avatar for user Joel
    Can someone elaborate why at Sal chose to take the positive square root.
    (3 votes)
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    • female robot grace style avatar for user C C
      The values here will be positive. The thing squared is (x+2) and the minimum value possible for x is -2. Therefore, 0 (-2+2) and up is the set of possible values. Since the values are positive (well, technically nonnegative) the principal/positive square root is sufficient.
      (6 votes)
  • leaf orange style avatar for user YanSu
    At , Sal said that if x was greater than or equal to -2 then the underlined expression would be positive, but zero isn't positive.
    (5 votes)
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  • male robot hal style avatar for user Nick
    Is it really necessary in this instance to write y>=1 for the inverse function? If you try any values less than one, you would have the square root of a negative number and since the plane that the graph is on is limited to only real numbers, wouldn't you be able to leave the restriction off entirely?
    (2 votes)
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    • male robot donald style avatar for user Jeremy
      Nick,

      This is true if you are limited to the "real" numbers, but many applications in mathematics allow "imaginary" or "complex" numbers. If you haven't learned about those yet, they allow the square root of a negative number… and they wind up becoming important when you look at the mathematics behind things that oscillate (like the pendulum on a grandfather clock, for example). Imaginary and complex numbers also are quite important in describing the way electricity moves through circuits, and many other problems.

      Since such things as imaginary and complex numbers exist, you actually CAN get answers to the function at y's less than -1. They'll be answers that use imaginary or complex numbers, but they'll be answers nonetheless. However, those answers that you get won't be the inverse of the function we were given. So to make everything explicitly clear we include the restriction.

      If all of that seems a little bit crazy and weird, you're right. Imaginary numbers come up usually in the first year of most student's algebra classes, towards the end, or in the second year of algebra. And most students usually have some trouble understanding the concept because it is a little strange. If you haven't encountered them yet, don't worry. You will eventually.
      (4 votes)
  • leaf green style avatar for user Lim Li-Sha
    Can someone explain why the value for x must be greater than or equal to -2? Why can't the output have a negative value?
    And also, why does x, if greater than or equal to -2 means that y is greater than or equal to one? For I thought that y should be greater than or equal to one.
    (2 votes)
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    • leafers ultimate style avatar for user Aneek James
      The constraint of x equaling or being greater than -2 is added because if you take the inverse of the original function, the inverse function wouldn't give you a real number for any value of x below -2. The product of any number squared is a positive number ( -2^2 = 2^2). Therefore, it is impossible (unless working with imaginary numbers) to get the square root of a negative number - because there is no situation where squaring a real number gets you a negative one! As for your other question - if you put in -2 into the original equation, you get 1. And if you put in any other x value greater than -2, the y value is greater than 1. So saying y must be greater than or equal to one is just saying the same thing in a different way. Hopefully I answered your questions completely!
      (5 votes)
  • mr pink orange style avatar for user Leila
    At , why is the range of y always grater or equal to 1? If i solve the equation for -2 I get 0..
    (2 votes)
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    • male robot hal style avatar for user Bollen
      The function is f(x)=(x+2)^2+1, so if you solve f(-2) you get:
      f(-2) = [(-2)+2]^2+1
      f(-2) = [0]^2+1
      f(-2) = 1

      You may be looking at when Sal writes the equation solved for the exponential expression as y-1=(x+2)^2 and forgetting to finish solving for y.
      y-1 = (x+2)^2
      y-1 = [(-2)+2]^2
      y-1 = 0^2
      y-1 = 0 :But we haven't solved for y yet!
      y=1
      (4 votes)
  • old spice man green style avatar for user Taran Cacacho
    At I still don't understand why Sal took the positive square root. Even though the domain of f is will make the expression (x+2) greater than or equal to 0, I don't see why Sal couldn't have taken the negative square root. It would have made logical sense right?
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user marc.macaulay
    How are you defining the restrictions? I found this unclear.
    (2 votes)
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    • orange juice squid orange style avatar for user graciousartist
      If you look at the graph you will notice that what is plotted starts from the coordinates (-2, 1). This is where we get the restraint of x>=-2 because when we enter any value above -2 into the function we will get a point on the curve.

      The restraint couldn't be x>=-3 because there's no definition, according to the function that is graphed for any value below -2. Hence, it couldn't be -3`. The restraint is simply stating the minimum value that can be entered into the function for it to find a corresponding y value. This is called the domain.

      Does that make sense?
      (3 votes)
  • blobby green style avatar for user Tam Vu
    I have the whole entire video, but the problem i still have is that how do you do this inverse function with the Coordinate Geometry and if i'm in the wrong video then can someone point me to the right one please? I'm new to khanacademy. Thanks in advance.
    (3 votes)
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Video transcript

We've got the function f of x is equal to x plus 2 squared plus 1, and we've constrained our domain that x has to be greater than or equal to negative 2. That's where we've defined our function. And we want to find its inverse. And I'll leave you to think about why we had to constrain it to x being a greater than or equal to negative 2. Wouldn't it have been possible to find the inverse if we had just left it as the full parabola? I'll leave you -- or maybe I'll make a future video about that. But let's just figure out the inverse here. So, like we've said in the first video, in the introduction to inverses, we're trying to find a mapping. Or, if we were to say that y -- if we were to say that y is equal to x plus 2 squared plus 1. This is the function you give me an x and it maps to y. We want to go the other way. We want to take, I'll give you a y and then map it to an x. So what we do is, we essentially just solve for x in terms of y. So let's do that one step at a time. So, the first thing to do, we could subtract 1 from both sides of this equation. y minus 1 is equal to x plus 2 squared. And now to solve here, you might want to take the square root. And that actually will be the correct thing to do. But it's very important to think about whether you want to take the positive or the negative square root at this step. So we've constrained our domain to x is greater than or equal to negative 2. So this value right here, x plus 2, if x is always greater than or equal to negative 2, x plus 2 will always be greater than or equal to 0. So this expression right here, this right here is positive. This is positive. So we have a positive squared. So if we really want to get to the x plus 2 in the appropriate domain, we want to take the positive square root. And in the next video or the video after that, we'll solve an example where you want to take the negative square root. So we're going to take theundefined positive square root, or just the principal root, which is just the square root sign, of both sides. So you get the square root of y minus 1 is equal to x plus 2. And one thing I should have remembered to do is, from the beginning we had a constraint on x. We had for x is greater than or equal to negative 2. But what constraint could we have on y? If you look at the graph right here, x is greater than equal to negative 2. But what's why? What is the range of y-values that we can get here? Well, if you just look at the graph, y will always be greater than or equal to 1. And that just comes from the fact that this term right here is always going to be greater than or equal to 0. So the minimum value that the function could take on is 1. So we could say for x is greater than or equal to negative 2, and we could add that y is always going to be greater than or equal to 1. y is always greater than or equal to 1. The function is always greater than or equal to that right there. To 1. And the reason why I want to write it at the stage is because, you know, later on, we're going to swap the the x's and y's. So let's just leave that there. So here we haven't explicitly solved for x and y. But we can write for y is greater than or equal to 1, this is going to be the domain for our inverse, so to speak. And so here we can keep it for y is greater than or equal to 1. This y constraint's going to matter more. Because over here, the domain is x. But for the inverse, the domain is going to be the y-value. And then, let's see. We have the square root of y minus 1 is equal to x plus 2. Now we can subtract 2 from both sides. We get the square root of y minus 1 minus 2, is equal to x for y is greater than or equal to 1. And so we've solved for x in terms of y. Or, we could say, let me just write it the other way. We could say, x is equal to, I'm just swapping this. x is equal to the square root of y minus one minus 2, for y is greater than or equal to one. So you see, now, the way we've written it out. y is the input into the function, which is going to be the inverse of that function. x the output. x is now the range. So we could even rewrite this as f inverse of y. That's what x is, is equal to the square root of y minus 1 minus 2, for y is greater than or equal to 1. And this is the inverse function. We could say this is our answer. But many times, people want the answer in terms of x. And we know we could put anything in here. If we put an a here, we take f inverse of a. It'll become the square root of a minus 1 minus 2, 4. Well, assuming a is greater than or equal to 1. But we could put an x in here. So we can just rename the the y for x. So we could just do a renaming here. So we can just rename y for x. And then we would get -- let me scroll down a little bit. We would f inverse of x. I'll highlight it here. Just to show you, we're renaming y with x. You could rename it with anything really, is equal to the square root of x minus 1. Of x minus 1. Minus 2 for, we have to rename this to, for x being greater than or equal to 1. And so we now have our inverse function as a function of x. And if we were to graph it, let's try our best to graph it. Maybe the easiest thing to do is to draw some points here. So the smallest value x can take on is 1. If you put a 1 here, you get a 0 here. So the point 1, negative 2, is on our inverse graph. So 1, negative 2 is right there. And then if we go to 2, let's see, 2 minus 1 is 1. The principle root of that is 1. Minus 2. So it's negative 1, so the point, 2, negative 1 is right there. And let's think about it. Let's see. If we did 5, I'm trying take perfect squares. 5 minus 1 is 4, minus 2. So the point 5, 2 is, let me make sure. 5 minus 1 is 4. Square root is 2. Minus 2 is 0. So the point 5, 0 is here. And so the inverse graph, it's only defined for x greater than or equal to negative 1. So the inverse graph is going to look something like this. It's going to look something like, I started off well, and it got messy. So it's going to look something like that. Just like that. And just like we saw, in the first, the introduction to function inverses, these are mirror images around the line y equals x. Let me graph y equals x. y equals x. y equals x is that line right there. Notice, they're mirror images around that line. Over here, we map the value 0 to 5. If x is 0, it gets mapped to 5. Here we go the other way. We're mapping 5 to -- we're mapping 5 to the value 0. So that's why they're mirror images. We've essentially swapped the x and y.