Evolution of the Function Concept: A Brief Survey

Abstract

received his Ph.D. in ring theory at McGill University, and has been at York University for over twenty years. He has been involved in teacher education at the undergraduate and graduate levels and has given numerous talks to high school students and teachers. One of his major interests is the history of mathematics and its use in the teaching of mathematics. Introduction. The evolution of the concept of function goes back 4000 years; 3700 of these consist of anticipations. The idea evolved for close to 300 years in intimate connection with problems in calculus and analysis. (A one-sentence definition of analysis as the study of properties of various classes of functions would not be far off the mark.) In fact, the concept of function is one of the distinguishing features of